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Robert Louis Stevenson 
A favorite portrait of the author. 












STEVENSON’S 

AN INLAND VOYAGE 

AND 

TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 

EDITED BY 

FLORENCE ALLEN CROCKER 

HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH 
LA SALLE-PERU-OGLESBY JUNIOR COLLEGE 
LA SALLE, ILLINOIS 


GOL - 
DEN 



KEY 

SERIES 


D. C. HEATH AND COMPANY 


BOSTON 

ATLANTA 


NEW YORK 
SAN FRANCISCO 
LONDON 


CHICAGO 

DALLAS 


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Copyright, 1931, 

By Florence A. Crocker 

No part of the material covered by this 
copyright may be reproduced in any form 
without written permission of the publisher. 
3 i 


Printed in the United States of America 

'•ov -7 1931 

©CIA 43861 



CONTENTS 


Page 

INTRODUCTION.v 

AN INLAND VOYAGE 

Dedication.2 

Author’s Preface.3 

Text.7 

TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 

Dedication.166 

Text.169 

NOTES.299 

PRONUNCIATION OF NAMES .... 325 


TOPICS FOR THEME WRITING . . .329 







MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS 


Robert Louis Stevenson. 

Map of An Inland Voyage .... 
Map of the Voyage on the Sambre 
Pont-sur-Sambre : The Tower 

Map of the Upper Oise. 

Noyon . 

Map of the Lower Oise. 

Church at Pont Sainte-Maxence . 

Between Creil and Precy .... 
Map of the High Cevennes .... 

Map of the Velay. 

The Whole Hypothec Groveled in the Dust 
Map of Gevaudan and Vivarais 
Mirandol on the Chassezac .... 
The Country of the Camisards 

Pont de Montvert. 

Florac . 


Frontispiece 

Page 

Facing 7 

” 25 

” 39 

” 61 

” 105 

” 111 

” 127 

” 135 

” 169 

” 177 

” 181 

” 197 

” 237 

” 249 

” 255 

” 275 


iv 






INTRODUCTION 

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
“YOUTH’S END” 

(Being the true story of Stevenson’s life up to the time he set out 
with his donkey.) 

“A Family of Engineers” 

Born in 1850, Robert Louis Stevenson may be thought 
of as carrying over into the Victorian Age of science and 
realism a little of the fancy and youthful enthusiasm of 
the Romantic Period. The fact that his birth occurred 
on the thirteenth of the bleak month of November might 
appeal to the superstitious as indicative of that unfor¬ 
tunate side of his life, his half-invalidism. How he had 
the inner courage to fight this awful handicap to his natural 
desire of adventure may be partly explained by his hered¬ 
ity, the legacy from his sturdy Scotch ancestors. 

Men of adventurous spirit were his forebears from the 
earliest records down to the time of his great-grandfather, 
who lost his life quelling a revolt in the West Indies. His 
grandfather, Robert Stevenson, for whom he was named, 
was not only the chief engineer of the Board of Northern 
Lights but also an inventor and scientist. Besides build¬ 
ing twenty lighthouses, magic lanterns as it were, off the 
Islands of Scotland, he accomplished the remarkable feat 
of building a light far from land upon the Eddystone, a 


VI 


INTRODUCTION 


reef twelve feet below tjhe water at high tide. Four montjis 
after Robert Stevenson’s death, a grandson was born who 
was to put into finished prose the inspired visions of the 
farseeing engineer, who had always sought out picturesque 
spots for his beacons. 

Thomas Stevenson, the author’s father, distinguished 
himself further by his scientific researches and his inven¬ 
tion of a revolving light. He became president of The 
Royal Society of Edinburgh and, besides carrying on the 
strenuous work of inspecting lighthouses, acquired the 
means to travel and to give his half-invalid son the best 
possible education and the finest kind of leisure. Although 
he was stern and profoundly religious in the deep Calvinis- 
tic way, he also had a romantic love of nature that showed 
itself in his family life. He adored Robert and like most 
fond parents delighted in relating the pranks of “ Smoutie,” 
as he called him. Thomas Stevenson soothed the boy’s 
troubled nights with bedtime tales of robbers and sailors, 
quite different from the bedtime stories in our newspapers 
today; father and son were alike in spirit and imagination 
if not in pursuits and religious views. 

All through the Stevenson family there had been two 
tendencies : a love of adventure — even worldliness, and 
a strain of strict Scotch Presbyterianism. The latter 
found its most complete expression in his grandfather on 
his mother’s side, the Reverend Louis Balfour, D.D., in 
whose manse Robert played as a boy. Later Stevenson 
laughingly confessed that he probably got from his grand¬ 
father his love of preaching. But the moral precepts 
of the stern Doctor of Divinity were softened by the grand¬ 
son into witty pleasantries on the perfect art of living. 


INTRODUCTION 


vii 

Although Robert had the utmost respect for the ideals of 
both his father and grandfather, yet he could not any more 
be bound by their strict creed, than be hemmed in by 
the narrow streets of Edinburgh. 

“Smoutie” at Play 

In his recollections Stevenson speaks of his childish 
fear of Hell, especially on stormy nights when, hearing 
fearful sounds, he would often pray and cry himself to 
sleep. These early fears must have had the almost reac¬ 
tionary effect of making him into a gentle doubter. And 
the Puritan abhorrence of any form in worship made him 
quite unappreciative of the beauty of the church as he 
found it later in the great cathedrals of France. From 
his mother, too, religion should have been bred in the 
bone, but her influence was not strong, for she was herself 
too much of an invalid to entertain or preach gently to 
her son from “ under the counterpane.” She, however, 
interceded with the uncompromising father to let little 
Robert play in bed on Sundays if he limited himself to 
the Pilgrim’s Progress game. Although Robert expressed 
the greatest possible admiration for the beauty of his 
mother and for her character, she did not dominate his 
life. 

He was somewhat of a child prodigy, almost a baby 
Hercules in his feats, for he climbed a long flight of stairs 
at the age of nine months, and at the age of one year called 
people by their names. But having inherited a weak chest, 
he spent much of his time in bed beset by a vicious circle 
of lung and throat diseases. 

It was his nurse, Alison Cummingham, who read to him 


Vlll 


INTRODUCTION 


at night. She imparted to him her love of stories and 
of dramas that she had never seen on the stage, but which 
she was able to visualize with skillful imagination. She 
made his confinement such that he could later write “All 
my childhood is a golden age to me; I have no recol¬ 
lections of bad weather” — and the weather was that of 
Scotland! 

It was to “Cummie” that he dictated his first literary 
effort, which occurred at the age of six. His uncle, David 
Stevenson, offered a prize to his children and nephews for 
the best history of Moses. Robert did not win but he got 
honorable mention for his little account. From that time 
on he had one purpose in life — to become an author. The 
story of rescuing Moses from the bulrushes was the means 
of a boy’s being inspired to lead many chosen people into 
the promised land of romance. 

Idle Days of Boyhood 

From the age of seven, he attended several schools 
with varying success. One of his teachers describes him: 
“He was without exception the most delightful boy I 
ever knew, full of fun, full of tender feeling, ready for 
his lessons, ready for a story.” His days of truancy were 
as important for his later artistic development as those 
of trying to learn to spell — he never did learn. He 
was fond of his toy theater and used to entertain his 
cousins — he had fifty of them, enough to make a good 
audience if he could collect them all at once. He was 
ingenious also in inventing games and he took special 
delight in playing among the graves near his grandfather’s 
manse looking for “spunkies” or fungus to be used as 


INTRODUCTION 


IX 


tinder. His black pony he named “Purgatory,” and 
he drove him recklessly enough to get a glimpse into the 
dark region. His love of what he called “crusoeing” 
led him not only to picnicking but also to his great ad¬ 
venture in the open in France, described in these essays. 
His greatest boyhood sport with some of his pals, however, 
he tells about in his essay “The Lantern-Bearers.” They 
would fasten their tin bull’s-eye lanterns and climb into 
fishing boats at the wharfs; there they would sit in the 
lantern light and tell sea stories. 

At the early age of seven, he began to travel with his 
parents, first visiting the English Lakes. By the time 
he was twelve he had seen Salisbury, Stonehenge, 
Hamburg, Genoa, and Venice and had even traveled 
back from London alone. Unlike his hero in “Will o’ 
the Mill,” he fulfilled every ambition to see what lay 
beyond the mountains. He remembered and loved the 
open spaces rather than the cities. 

His first boyish compositions, patterned after Scott, 
Thackeray, or Dumas, were all on an absurdly grandiose 
scale: an opera in doggerel rhymes called the Baneful 
Potato with Dig-him-up-o, the gardener, the History of 
the Pentland Rising, and a novel which ended in the 
wastebasket. His greatest outlet to the writing urge 
found itself in school magazines, several of which he 
started himself. One copy of the School Boys’ Magazine, 
the most successful of these, contained four of his tales 
of horror. He spurned the idea of keeping a diary but, 
with two books with him at all times, he read from one 
and wrote in the other, playing with himself the great 
game of words. He noted what he observed, or tried 


X 


INTRODUCTION 


halting stanzas, just for practice till he had acquired a 
flexibility of style. 

College Sports and Work 

Although he preferred to study only literature and 
languages, he was willing to please his father by taking 
up the engineering course at the University of Edinburgh. 
Of these days he later wrote: “ Shivering on wet, east- 
windy, morning journeys up to class, infinite yawnings 
during lecture, and unquenchable gusto in the delight of 
truantry made up the sunshine and the shadow of my 
college life.” Part of the three years spent in this train¬ 
ing he loved, for it carried him to wild islands away from 
cities and civilization. Gradually he was being trans¬ 
formed into the beloved vagabond of An Inland Voyage. 

When he was seventeen, his father leased a house, 
known as Swanston Cottage, in the Pentland Hills, five 
miles from Edinburgh, which became from this time 
a place to retire to, alone or with friends. Here he made 
his first acquaintance with canoes, for his college friend, 
Sir Walter Simpson, owned a large double canoe, one of 
the first introduced in the Firth of Forth. At this time 
he affected a slightly eccentric costume, consisting of a 
dark blue flannel blouse, which he called his “ black 
shirt” long before Mussolini used the symbol. 

Even when he was supposed to be doing hard scientific 
work at the University of Edinburgh, he often escaped 
to tobacconists’ shops such as “The Green Elephant,” 
“The Twinkling Eye,” or the “Gay Japanee” to seek 
the company of seamen, of chimney sweeps, or even of 
thieves. He was also fond of secret societies and founded 


INTRODUCTION 


xi 


an embryo fraternity of six members under the mysterious 
letters of L. J. R. It was not so violent as the famous 
Suicide Club that was later his brain creation, but it 
carried out all manner of practical jokes. Like Shelley, 
he became a violent Socialist and for a brief time even 
called himself an atheist. All through his college days 
he was a picturesque figure. Mrs. Jenkin, the wife of 
his professor, described him at the age of eighteen as “a 
slender, brown, long-haired lad, with great dark eyes, a 
brilliant smile, and a gentle deprecating bend of the head.’' 

Finally at the age of twenty-one he told his father 
frankly that he wanted to give up engineering. His 
father, probably having foreseen just this outcome, 
agreed on the condition that he take up law in order to 
have something to fall back upon. During his legal 
course, he was changed far more by his friends and books 
than by his study. It was at this time he came under 
the influence of the American poet, Walt Whitman. 
Later he wrote “Walt Whitman, having shaken my 
tabernacle of lies, set me back again upon the strong 
foundation of all original and manly virtues.” With 
little real interest in the subject of law, he, however, 
passed the preliminary examination for the Scottish Bar 
at the age of twenty-two, and, after almost prohibitory 
interruptions, the final examinations three years later. 

Life among the Artists 

The interruption in his law course was caused by his 
health; he was ordered South. There on the Riviera 
he regained his health and made many delightful friends, 
many of whom were artists. There, too, he crossed the 


Xll 


INTRODUCTION 


Rubicon from law to literature for a calling. Though 
his actual achievement was small, yet he was able to 
convince his father of enough artistic ability so that 
he was granted a generous allowance to live abroad. 
The next five years he spent in London, Paris, or among 
the painters at Fontainebleau, Barbizon, and Grez. He 
said of the life among the artists that it was “ a good 
place and a good life for any naturally minded youth 
and best of all for the student of letters. He, too, was 
saturated in the atmosphere of style; he might forget 
there existed other and more pressing interests than that 
of art. We were all artists; almost all in the age of 
illusion, cultivating an imaginary genius, and walking 
to the strains of some deceiving Ariel; small wonder, 
indeed, if we were happy.” 

“Crusoeing” in France 

If at last he had found his proper place, it only remained 
for him to prove to his father that he had a divine calling 
for literature. It was a propitious beginning when he 
set out on the “Inland Voyage” with a definite purpose 
of keeping a log book that he could later revise under less 
cloudy skies and make into a travel-essay to help defray 
the expenses. After the happy experience of a yachting 
trip with Sir Walter Simpson on the west coast of Scot¬ 
land, it was natural that he should turn to him for a 
companion on the great adventure. In some respects 
this Scotch nobleman was not altogether Stevenson’s 
type, for his mind was slow-working and he was shy and 
somewhat lacking in initiative. But Stevenson always 
spoke affectionately of his “ Cigarette,” as he called him. 


INTRODUCTION 


xiii 

First, in 1875, came the trip up the Loing on which they 
had the rare experience of being imprisoned, as described 
in the epilogue to An Inland Voyage. That occurred 
because of the vagabond clothes that the two affected 
for the walk. In September of the next year, an unfor¬ 
tunate month for weather, they journeyed from Antwerp 
to Brussels and then from the French frontier by the 
Oise almost to the Seine on the trip described in An 
Inland Voyage. Like Scott’s Quentin Durward, the essay 
covers a significant region to us because of the World 
War — when it was not all quiet on the Western Front. 
The voyage lasted seven days, long days and nights of 
“crusoeing.” 

The end of the voyage was marked by an important 
event. After Stevenson returned to his lodgings at Grez, 
he met Mrs. Osbourne, an American painter, who must 
have at once entered into the spirit of his adventures, for 
he fell deeply in love with her. With this new love filling 
his thought-life, he started out on his second journey of 
twelve days in the Cevennes in the showery month of 
September, 1878. He must have been in a highly senti¬ 
mental mood, for when he heard a girl singing an old 
ballad, he thought of “How the world gives and takes 
away and brings sweethearts near only to separate them 
into distant and strange lands.” On this remote trip he 
was alone with his donkey, for which he seemed to feel 
almost as much compassion as Laurence Sterne for that 
particular animal. His objective was another travel- 
essay to be written as a sequel to An Inland Voyage , 
which had been published in May of that year. 

The act of revising and composing must have been 


XIV 


INTRODUCTION 


painful even after his years of self-teaching, for Stevenson 
confessed that it took him four days to write his short 
preface, which he himself called “a weary preface.” He 
was always aware of both his virtues and vices as a writer, 
for he said of An Inland Voyage , that he found it—“ badly 
written, thin, mildly cheery, and strained.” Many years 
later he wrote that it had a natural, simple style which 
he had never attained afterward. On the Travels with a 
Donkey he commented, “It has good passages. A chapter 
called ‘The Monks,’ ‘A Camp in the Dark,’ a third, 
* A Night among the Pines ’: each of these has some 
stuff in it in the way of writing.” Of the two books 
Stevenson preferred An Inland Voyage to the Travels 
with a Donkey, though the latter had a better sale and 
appeals more strongly to his readers. It was the Travels 
with a Donkey that he heard a little Irish girl read aloud 
to her sister in a shilling boarding house in New York 
when he came as an “Amateur Emigrant” to America. 
It pleased him that they laughed at his adventures, 
neither of them realizing that they were entertaining 
the author. Between and after the two trips through 
rural France, he returned to his friends at Barbizon. 
If, on these adventures, Stevenson was often turned away 
from inns because he was mistaken for a peddler, here 
at Siron’s he belonged to the inner circle. 

Stevenson the Story-teller 

From A Child's Garden of Verses to the Vailima 
Letters — or the “ Aes Triplex,” with its brave facing 
of the reality of death — Stevenson’s appeal to all ages 
throughout life is remarkable. He is able, also, to catch 


INTRODUCTION 


xv 


any mood of the moment, from the absurdly grotesque 
melodrama of ‘‘The Body Snatcher” to the lightest bit 
of lyrical essay played to the tune of “Pan’s Pipes.” 
For those who enjoy Stevenson, the Wanderer, there are 
the long travel-essays, “The Amateur Emigrant” and 
“Across the Plains,” which carry the quest of adventure 
over from France to America. For those who would 
visit more intimately a spot that Stevenson loved, there 
are the pen pictures of “A Mountain Town in France” 
or “Edinburgh.” 

It is Treasure Island , however, that makes the best 
introduction into his romance-world. It is a kind of 
geography glorified. Just as Stevenson caught the in¬ 
spiration to spin the yarn from the map of his fancy, so 
we are guided by both map and story in our treasure 
hunt of literature. Stevenson confessed that he knew 
that his seamanship was “jimmy,” but he felt that “the 
characters were fairly lively on the wires.” The author’s 
figure of speech becomes a reality when Tony Sarg manip¬ 
ulates Jim Hawkins in his great marionette show based 
upon the story. Treasure Island and Kidnapped with 
their vivid sketches of Scotland will remain classics as long 
as the Great Illusion of Youth and Adventure remains. 

Into The Strange Case of Dr. Jelcyll and Mr. Hyde 
Stevenson has put more of his mature self. The story 
was suggested by a dream that the author confessed was 
caused by eating too freely of bread and jam. In re¬ 
vealing his own subconscious mind, he has attacked 
courageously the awful problem of dual personality; 
and from a moralist’s point of view, he has shown the 
triumph of the better self. Quite apart from the moral, 


XVI 


INTRODUCTION 


however, the story has a strong appeal through its mystery 
and suspense. The same gloomy background is to be 
felt in The Master of Ballantrae; it is here again a psycho¬ 
logical problem, the study of the consequences of a bitter 
fraternal hatred which can end only in tragedy. 

This is even more true of The Merry Men, where a 
remote island — among those that Stevenson’s ancestors 
had explored off the coast of Scotland — is made the scene 
of a character tragedy. Stevenson called it “a fantastic 
sonata about the sea.” Possibly the terror of the tale 
is too dependent upon natural forces like the storm, and 
perhaps the evil is too psychic to be real, but the strange 
remoteness of the place and of the people will always 
fascinate any one with an imaginative sense. The Ebb 
Tide has the same characteristic of remoteness, but it is 
far more human with its complex character of Herrick. 
Although it symbolizes the power that brings a criminal 
to justice, yet the immediate interest lies in the character 
of the men. G. K. Chesterton says, “ It has a very great 
deal of kick in it, even though we hardly have the full 
satisfaction of seeing all the characters kicked.” 

Into Weir of Hermiston Stevenson, for the first time, 
put the problem of woman’s love and suffering. It is 
unfortunate that he could not have lived long enough 
to give us his solution for it, for except for the last scene 
of The Merry Men, the endings of all his romances are not 
only dramatic but inevitable. 

Although many learn to love Stevenson through his 
romance-novels, yet it is in his short story that he is most 
truly the artist. The one closest to the spirit of the 
slightly absurd optimist that traveled on foot through 


INTRODUCTION xvii 

/ 

the Cevennes is “Providence and the Guitar.” The 
hero and heroine are happy without money or place to 
lay their heads even as Stevenson Avas in the “ Night among 
the Pines.” It is a pleasure to know that the real people 
who inspired the tale were -given the author’s profits, 
a larger gratuity than they ever received from their music. 

Of like interest in the same volume of the New Arabian 
Nights is the story of the night wandering of a more 
daring adventurer, Francois Villon in “The Lodging of 
a Night.” It begins with murder and ends with a scene 
similar to that of Jean Valjean with the Bishop in Les 
Miserables. If the hero provokes special interest, the 
reader may take up the author’s longer historical study 
of the early French poet in the essay called Francois 
Villon. 

On a cold evening in Paris as Stevenson watched alone 
the flickering flames of an open fire, he created one of 
his best stories of high adventure, “The Sire de Male- 
troit’s Door.” It might well be recommended as a bed¬ 
time story for the young intelligentsia. Although highly 
improbable, it moves from the night of unexpected 
romance to the dangers of the dawn with compelling 
force. The old man’s character is part of the mystery 
and suspense. “Will o’ the Mill” was another sudden 
inspiration, for during Stevenson’s first journey through 
the Brenner Pass, he keenly felt the awful isolation of the 
Alps. For the hero who missed the great experiences of 
life, travel, and love, Stevenson could feel only the most 
poignant pity. “Markheim” is an even finer and more 
forceful character-story. In it, the murderer, lingering 
in the curio shop with the body of his victim, is haunted 


XV111 


INTRODUCTION 


and begirt by presences until finally he sees himself for 
the first time and comes to his great decision. 

As relief from reading these stories of internal action, 
one may take those detective tales written in almost 
merry sport. “The Misadventures of John Nicholson” 
is a series of comic misfortunes that mount up with such 
amazing swiftness that the reader feels in the end like 
laughing with the author at his artistic joke. Yet under¬ 
neath it is the awful tragedy of the author’s own life, 
the misunderstanding of father and son. “The Wrong 
Box” is similar in effect. Although it might almost be 
taken as a parody on the detective story, yet it has suf¬ 
ficient character interest to make it more than an intricate 
chain of circumstances. It should be compared with 
his long novel The Wrecker, which was purposely made 
spooky to appeal to an American audience. 

A reading of Stevenson, however, is not complete 
without the three Polynesian romances included in the 
volume of Island Nights’ Entertainments. It is unfortu¬ 
nate that these three tales are as remote for the average 
reader as the places that they describe. The “ Beach of 
Falesa,” the first and best of the volume, possesses a 
charm like that of some of Joseph Conrad’s romances. 
“The Bottle Imp” is a fable of the lust for gold — a 
comedy with a dark danger lurking in the background. 
It combines the rare qualities of strangeness and beauty, 
which are accentuated by having love involved. 

All through his varied works, Stevenson resembles 
Rupert Brooke’s “Great Lover” in his fineness of feeling 
for the sensuous beauty of the world. Although he 
chiefly entertains, yet he is none the less truthful in his 


INTRODUCTION 


xix 


criticism of humanity. In one of his letters he says, 
“There is but one truth outside science, the truth that 
comes of an earnest smiling survey of mankind from 
China to Peru or further from today to the days of Prob¬ 
ably Arboreal.” By his keen and unerring observation 
of the details that make the world look lovely, his charming 
enthusiasms, and his interest in human problems, Steven¬ 
son shows us how to expand the fine and enjoyable part 
of our own natures. 






AN INLAND VOYAGE 


TO 


SIR WALTER GRINDLAY SIMPSON, bart. 

My Dear Cigarette , 

It was enough that you should have shared so liberally in the 
rams and portages of our voyage; that you should have had so 
hard a battle to recover the derelict Arethusa on the flooded Oise; 
and that you should thenceforth have piloted a mere wreck of 
mankind to Origny Sainte-Benoite and a supper so eagerly 
desired. It was perhaps more than enough, as you once 
somewhat piteously complained, that I should have set down all 
the strong language to you, and kept the appropriate reflexions 
for myself. I could not in decency expose you to share the 
disgrace of another and more public shipwreck. But now that 
this voyage of ours is going into a cheap edition, that peril, we 
shall hope, is at an end, and I may put your name on the burgee. 

But I cannot pause till I have lamented the fate of our two 
ships. That, sir, was not a fortunate day when we projected 
the possession of a canal barge; it was not a fortunate day when 
we shared our day-dream with the most hopeful of day-dreamers. 
For a while, indeed, the world looked smilingly. The barge was 
procured and christened, and as the Eleven Thousand Virgins 
of Cologne , lay for some months, the admired of all admirers, 
in a pleasant river and under the walls of an ancient town. 
M. Mattras, the accomplished carpenter of Moret, had made 
her a centre of emulous labour; and you will not have forgotten 
the amount of sweet champagne consumed in the inn at the bridge 
end, to give zeal to the workmen and speed to the work. On the 
financial aspect, I would not willingly dwell. The Eleven 
Thousand Virgins of Cologne rotted in the stream where she was 
beautified. She felt not the impulse of the breeze; she was never 
harnessed to the patient track-horse. And when at length she 
was sold, by the indignant carpenter of Moret, there were sold 
along with her the Arethusa and the Cigarette , she of cedar, she, 
as we knew so keenly on a portage, of solid-hearted English oak. 
Now these historic vessels fly the tricolor and are known by new 
and alien names. 


2 


R. L. S. 


PREFACE 


To equip so small a book with a preface is, I am half 
afraid, to sin against proportion. But a preface is more 
than an author can resist, for it is the reward of his labors. 
When the foundation stone is laid, the architect appears 
with his plans, and struts for an hour before the public 
eye. So with the writer in his preface : he may have never 
a word to say, but he must show himself for a moment in 
the portico, hat in hand, and with an urbane demeanor. 

It is best, in such circumstance, to represent a delicate 
shade of manner between humility and superiority: as 
if the book had been written by some one else, and you had 
merely run over it and inserted what was good. But for 
my part I have not yet learned the trick to that perfec¬ 
tion ; I am not yet able to dissemble the warmth of my 
sentiments towards a reader; and if I meet him on the 
threshold, it is to invite him in with country cordiality. 

To say truth, I had no sooner finished reading this little 
book in proof than I was seized upon by a distressing ap¬ 
prehension. 

It occurred to me that I might not only be the first to 
read these pages, but the last as well; that I might have 
pioneered this very smiling tract of country all in vain, 
and find not a soul to follow in my steps. The more I 
thought, the more I disliked the notion; until the distaste 
grew into a sort of panic terror, and I rushed into this 

3 


4 


PREFACE 


Preface, which is no more than an advertisement for 
readers. 

What am I to say for my book? Caleb and Joshua 
brought back from Palestine a formidable bunch of grapes ; 
alas! my book produces naught so nourishing; and for 
the matter of that, we live in an age when people prefer 
a definition to any quantity of fruit. 

I wonder, would a negative be found enticing ? for, from 
the negative point of view, I flatter myself this volume has 
a certain stamp. Although it runs to considerably up¬ 
wards of two hundred pages, it contains not a single ref¬ 
erence to the imbecility of God’s universe, nor so much as 
a single hint that I could have made a better one myself, 
— I really do not know where my head can have been. I 
seemed to have forgotten all that makes it glorious to be 
man. ’T is an omission that renders the book philosoph¬ 
ically unimportant; but I am in hopes the eccentricity 
may please in frivolous circles. 

To the friend who accompanied me I owe many thanks 
already, indeed I wish I owed him nothing else; but at 
this moment I feel towards him an almost exaggerated 
tenderness. He, at least, will become my reader — if it 
were only to follow his own travels alongside of mine. 

R. L. S. 


CONTENTS 


Page 

Antwerp to Boom.7 

On the Willebroek Canal.12 

The Royal Sport Nautique.18 

At Maubeuge.25 

On the Sambre Canalized: to Quartes ... 30 

Pont-sur-Sambre : — 

We Are Pedlars.36 

The Traveling Merchant.43 

On the Sambre Canalized : to Landrecies ... 48 

At Landrecies ......... 54 

Sambre and Oise Canal: Canal Boats ... 59 

The Oise in Flood.66 

Origny Sainte-BenoIte : — 

A By-Day.74 

The Company at Table.81 

Down the Oise : to Moy.88 

La Fere of Cursed Memory.94 

Down the Oise : through the Golden Valley . . 100 

Noyon Cathedral.103 

Down the Oise : to Compiegne.109 

At Compiegne.113 

Changed Times.118 

Down the Oise : Church Interiors . . . .125 

Precy and the Marionettes ...... 133 

Back to the World.145 

Epilogue to “An Inland Voyage” .... 147 

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ANTWERP TO BOOM 


We made a great stir in Antwerp Docks. A stevedore 
and a lot of dock porters took up the two canoes, and 
ran with them for the slip. A crowd of children followed 
cheering. The Cigarette went off in a splash and a bubble 
of small breaking water. Next moment the Arethusa was 
after her. A steamer was coming down, men on the 
paddle box shouted hoarse warnings, the stevedore and 
his porters were bawling from the quay. But in a stroke 
or two the canoes were away out in the middle of the 
Scheldt, and all steamers, and stevedores, and other 
’longshore vanities were left behind. 

The sun shone brightly; the tide was making — four 
jolly miles an hour; the wind blew steadily, with occa¬ 
sional squalls. For my part, I had never been in a canoe 
under sail in my life; and my first experiment out in the 
middle of this big river was not made without some trepi¬ 
dation. What would happen when the wind first caught 
my little canvas? I suppose it was almost as trying a 
venture into the regions of the unknown as to publish a 
first book, or to marry. But my doubts were not of long 
duration; and in five minutes you will not be surprised 
to learn that I had tied my sheet. 

I own I was a little struck by this circumstance myself; 
of course, in company with the rest of my fellow-men, I 
had always tied the sheet in a sailing boat; but in so 

7 


8 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


little and crank a concern as a canoe, and with these 
charging squalls, I was not prepared to find myself follow 
the same principle; and it inspired me with some con¬ 
temptuous views of our regard for life. It is certainly 
easier to smoke with the sheet fastened; but I had never 
before weighed a comfortable pipe of tobacco against an 
obvious risk, and gravely elected for the comfortable 
pipe. It is a commonplace, that we cannot answer for 
ourselves before we have been tried. But it is not so 
common a reflection, and surely more consoling that 
we usually find ourselves a great deal braver and better 
than we thought. I believe this is every one’s experi¬ 
ence : but an apprehension that they may belie themselves 
in the future prevents mankind from trumpeting this 
cheerful sentiment abroad. I wish sincerely, for it would 
have saved me much trouble, there had been some one 
to put me in a good heart about life when I was younger; 
to tell me how dangers are most portentous on a distant 
sight; and how the good in a man’s spirit will not suffer 
itself to be overlaid, and rarely or never deserts him in 
the hour of need. But we are all for tootling on the senti¬ 
mental flute in literature; and not a man among us will 
go to the head of the march to sound the heady drums. 

It was agreeable upon the river. A barge or two went 
past laden with hay. Reeds and willows bordered the 
stream; and cattle and grey, venerable horses came and 
hung their mild heads over the embankment. Here and 
there was a pleasant village among trees, with a noisy 
shipping yard; here and there a villa in a lawn. The 
wind served us well up the Scheldt and thereafter up the 
Rupel; and we were running pretty free when we began 


ANTWERP TO BOOM 


9 


to sight the brickyards of Boom, lying for a long way on 
the right bank of the river. The left bank was still green 
and pastoral, with alleys of trees along the embankment, 
and here and there a flight of steps to serve a ferry, where 
perhaps there sat a woman with her elbows on her knees, 
or an old gentleman with a staff and silver spectacles. 
But Boom and its brickyards grew smokier and shabbier 
with every minute; until a great church with a clock, and 
a wooden bridge over the river, indicated the central 
quarters of the town. 

Boom is not a nice place, and is only remarkable for 
one thing: that the majority of the inhabitants have a 
private opinion that they can speak English, which is 
not justified by fact. This gave a kind of haziness to our 
intercourse. As for the Hotel de la Navigation, I think 
it is the worst feature of the place. It boasts of a sanded 
parlor, with a bar at one end, looking on the street; 
and another sanded parlor, darker and colder, with an 
empty bird cage and a tricolor subscription box by way 
of sole adornment, where we made shift to dine in the 
company of three uncommunicative engineer apprentices 
and a silent bagman. The food, as usual in Belgium, was 
of a nondescript occasional character; indeed I have 
never been able to detect anything in the nature of a meal 
among this pleasing people; they seem to peck and trifle 
with viands all day long in an amateur spirit: tentatively 
French, truly German, and somehow falling between the 
two. 

The empty bird cage, swept and garnished, and with 
no trace of the old piping favorite, save where two wires 
had been pushed apart to hold its lump of sugar, carried 


10 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


with it a sort of graveyard cheer. The engineer appren¬ 
tices would have nothing to say to us, nor indeed to the 
bagman; but talked low and sparingly to one another, 
or raked us in the gaslight with a gleam of spectacles. 
For though handsome lads, they were all (in the Scotch 
phrase) barnacled. 

There was an English maid in the hotel, who had been 
long enough out of England to pick up all sorts of funny 
foreign idioms, and all sorts of curious foreign ways, which 
need not here be specified. She spoke to us very fluently 
in her jargon, asked us information as to the manners 
of the present day in England, and obligingly corrected 
us when we attempted to answer. But as we were deal¬ 
ing with a woman, perhaps our information was not so 
much thrown away as it appeared. The sex likes to 
pick up knowledge and yet preserve its superiority. It 
is good policy, and almost necessary in the circumstances. 
If a man finds a woman admires him, were it only for his 
acquaintance with geography, he will begin at once to 
build upon the admiration. It is only by unintermittent 
snubbing that the pretty ones can keep us in our place. 
Men, as Miss Howe or Miss Harlowe would have said, 
“are such encroachers” For my part, I am body and 
soul with the women; and after a well-married couple, 
there is nothing so beautiful in the world as the myth of 
the divine huntress. It is no use for a man to take to 
the woods ; we know him; Anthony tried the same thing 
long ago, and had a pitiful time of it by all accounts. But 
there is this about some women, which overtops the best 
gymnosophist among men, that they suffice to themselves, 
and can walk in a high and cold zone without the coun- 


ANTWERP TO BOOM 


11 


tenance of any trousered being. I declare, although the 
reverse of a professed ascetic, I am more obliged to 
women for this ideal than I should be to the majority of 
them, or indeed to any but one, for a spontaneous kiss. 
There is nothing so encouraging as the spectacle of self- 
sufficiency. And when I think of the slim and lovely 
maidens, running the woods all night to the note of 
Diana’s horn; moving among the old oaks, as fancy-free 
as they; things of the forest and the starlight, not touched 
by the commotion of man’s hot and turbid life — although 
there are plenty other ideals that I should prefer — I 
find my heart beat at the thought of this one. ’Tis to 
fail in life, but to fail with what a grace ! That is not lost 
which is not regretted. And where — here slips out the 
male — where would be much of the glory of inspiring 
love, if there were no contempt to overcome ? 


ON THE WILLEBROEK CANAL 


Next morning, when we set forth on the Willebroek 
Canal, the rain began heavy and chill. The water of 
the canal stood at about the drinking temperature of 
tea; and under this cold aspersion, the surface was 
covered with steam. The exhilaration of departure, and 
the easy motion of the boats under each stroke of the 
paddles, supported us through this misfortune while it 
lasted; and when the cloud passed and the sun came out 
again, our spirits went up above the range of stay-at- 
home humors. A good breeze rustled and shivered in 
the rows of trees that bordered the canal. The leaves 
flickered in and out of the light in tumultuous masses. 
It seemed sailing weather to eye and ear; but down be¬ 
tween the banks, the wind reached us only in faint and 
desultory puffs. There was hardly enough to steer by. 
Progress was intermittent and unsatisfactory. A jocular 
person, of marine antecedents, hailed us from the tow- 
path with a “C’est vite, mais c’est long” 

The canal was busy enough. Every now and then we 
met or overtook a long string of boats, with great green 
tillers; high sterns with a window on either side of the 
rudder, and perhaps a jug or a flowerpot in one of the 
windows; a dingy following behind; a woman busied 
about the day's dinner, and a handful of children. These 
barges were all tied one behind the other with towropes, 
12 


ON THE WILLEBROEK CANAL 


13 


to the number of twenty-five or thirty; and the line was 
headed and kept in motion by a steamer of strange con¬ 
struction. It had neither paddlewheel nor screw; but 
by some gear not rightly comprehensible to the unme¬ 
chanical mind, it fetched up over its bow a small bright 
chain which lay along the bottom of the canal, and paying 
it out again over the stern, dragged itself forward, link 
by link, with its whole retinue of loaded scows. Until 
one had found out the key to the enigma, there was some¬ 
thing solemn and uncomfortable in the progress of one of 
these trains, as it moved gently along the water with noth¬ 
ing to mark its advance but an eddy alongside dying away 
into the wake. 

Of all the creatures of commercial enterprise, a canal 
barge is by far the most delightful to consider. It may 
spread its sails, and then you see it sailing high above 
the tree tops and the windmill, sailing on the aqueduct, 
sailing through the green cornlands: the most picturesque 
of things amphibious. Or the horse plods along at a foot¬ 
pace as if there were no such thing as business in the world; 
and the man dreaming at the tiller sees the same spire on 
the horizon all day long. It is a mystery how things ever 
get to their destination at this rate; and to see the barges 
waiting their turn at a lock, affords a fine lesson of how 
easily the world may be taken. There should be many 
contented spirits on board, for such a life is both to travel 
and to stay at home. 

The chimney smokes for dinner as you go along; the 
banks of the canal slowly unroll their scenery to contem¬ 
plative eyes; the barge floats by great forests and through 
great cities with their public buildings and their lamps 


14 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


at night; and for the bargee, in his floating home, “ trav¬ 
eling abed,” it is merely as if he were listening to another 
man’s story or turning the leaves of a picture book in which 
he had no concern. He may take his afternoon walk in 
some foreign country on the banks of the canal, and then 
come home to dinner at his own fireside. 

There is not enough exercise in such a life for any high 
measure of health; but a high measure of health is only 
necessary for unhealthy people. The slug of a fellow, 
who is never ill nor well, has a quiet time of it in life, and 
dies all the easier. 

I am sure I would rather be a bargee than occupy any 
position under Heaven that required attendance at an 
office. There are few callings, I should say, where a man 
gives up less of his liberty in return for regular meals. 
The bargee is on shipboard; he is master in his own ship; 
he can land whenever he will; he can never be kept beat¬ 
ing off a lee shore a whole frosty night when the sheets 
are as hard as iron; and so far as I can make out, time 
stands as nearly still with him as is compatible with the 
return of bedtime or the dinner hour. It is not easy to 
see why a bargee should ever die. 

Halfway between Willebroek and Villevorde, in a 
beautiful reach of canal like a squire’s avenue, we went 
ashore to lunch. There were two eggs, a junk of bread, 
and a bottle of wine on board the Arethusa; and two eggs 
and an Etna cooking apparatus on board the Cigarette. 
The master of the latter boat smashed one of the eggs 
in the course of disembarkation; but observing pleas¬ 
antly that it might still be cooked a la papier, he dropped 
it into the Etna, in its covering of Flemish newspaper. 


ON THE WILLEBROEK CANAL 


15 


We landed in a blink of fine weather; but we had not been 
two minutes ashore before the wind freshened into half 
a gale, and the rain began to patter on our shoulders. 
We sat as close about the Etna as we could. The spirits 
burned with great ostentation; the grass caught flame 
every minute or two, and had to be trodden out; and 
before long there were several burnt fingers of the party. 
But the solid quantity of cookery accomplished was out of 
proportion with so much display; and when we desisted, 
after two applications of the fire, the sound egg was a little 
more than loo-warm; and as for a la papier, it was a cold 
and sordid fricassee of printer’s ink and broken eggshell. 
We made shift to roast the other two by putting them close 
to the burning spirits, and that with better success. And 
then we uncorked the bottle of wine, and sat down in a 
ditch with our canoe aprons over our knees. It rained 
smartly. Discomfort, when it is honestly uncomfortable 
and makes no nauseous pretensions to the contrary, is a 
vastly humorous business; and people well steeped and 
stupefied in the open air are in a good vein for laughter. 
From this point of view, even egg a la papier offered by 
way of food may pass muster as a sort of accessory to the 
fun. But this manner of jest, although it may be taken 
in good part, does not invite repetition; and from that 
time forward the Etna voyaged like a gentleman in the 
locker of the Cigarette. 

It is almost unnecessary to mention that when lunch 
was over and we got aboard again and made sail, the wind 
promptly died away. The rest of the journey to Ville- 
vorde we still spread our canvas to the unfavoring air, 
and with now and then a puff, and now and then a spell 


16 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


of paddling, drifted along from lock to lock between the 
orderly trees. 

It was a fine, green, fat landscape, or rather a mere 
green water lane going on from village to village. Things 
had a settled look, as in places long lived in. Crop-headed 
children spat upon us from the bridges as we went below, 
with a true conservative feeling. But even more conserva¬ 
tive were the fishermen, intent upon their floats, who let 
us go by without one glance. They perched upon ster¬ 
lings and buttresses and along the slope of the embank¬ 
ment, gently occupied. They were indifferent like pieces 
of dead nature. They did not move any more than if 
they had been fishing in an old Dutch print. The leaves 
fluttered, the water lapped, but they continued in one 
stay, like so many churches established by law. You 
might have trepanned every one of their innocent heads 
and found no more than so much coiled fishing line be¬ 
low their skulls. I do not care for your stalwart fellows 
in india-rubber stockings breasting up mountain torrents 
with a salmon rod; but I do dearly love the class of man 
who plies his unfruitful art forever and a day by still and 
depopulated waters. 

At the lock just beyond Villevorde there was a lock 
mistress who spoke French comprehensibly, and told us 
we were still a couple of leagues from Brussels. At the 
same place the rain began again. It fell in straight, 
parallel lines, and the surface of the canal was thrown up 
into an infinity of little crystal fountains. There were 
no beds to be had in the neighborhood. Nothing for it 
but to lay the sails aside and address ourselves to steady 
paddling in the rain. 


ON THE WILLEBROEK CANAL 


17 


Beautiful country houses, with clocks and long lines 
of shuttered windows, and fine old trees standing in 
groves and avenues, gave a rich and somber aspect in 
the rain and the deepening dusk to the shores of the canal. 
I seem to have seen something of the same effect in 
engravings: opulent landscapes, deserted and overhung 
with the passage of storm. And throughout we had the 
escort of a hooded cart, which trotted shabbily along the 
towpath, and kept at an almost uniform distance in our 
wake. 


THE ROYAL SPORT NAUTIQUE 


The rain took off near Laeken. But the sun was 
already down; the air was chill; and we had scarcely a 
dry stitch between the pair of us. Nay, now we found 
ourselves near the end of the Allee Verte, and on the very 
threshold of Brussels we were confronted by a serious 
difficulty. The shores were closely lined by canal boats 
waiting their turn at the lock. Nowhere was there any 
convenient landing place; nowhere so much as a stable 
yard to leave the canoes in for the night. We scrambled 
ashore and entered an estaminet where some sorry fellows 
were drinking with the landlord. The landlord was 
pretty round with us; he knew of no coach house or 
stable yard, nothing of the sort; and seeing we had come 
with no mind to drink, he did not conceal his impatience 
to be rid of us. One of the sorry fellows came to the 
rescue. Somewhere in the corner of the basin there was 
a slip, he informed us, and something else besides, not 
very clearly defined by him, but hopefully construed by 
his hearers. 

Sure enough there was the slip in the corner of the basin ; 
and at the top of it two nice-looking lads in boating clothes. 
The Arethusa addressed himself to these. One of them 
said there would be no difficulty about a night’s lodging 
for our boats; and the other, taking a cigarette from his 
18 


THE ROYAL SPORT NAUTIQUE 


19 


lips, inquired if they were made by Searle & Son. The 
name was quite an introduction. Half a dozen other 
young men came out of a boathouse bearing the super¬ 
scription Royal Sport Nautique, and joined in the talk. 
They were all very polite, voluble, and enthusiastic; and 
their discourse was interlarded with English boating 
terms, and the names of English boat builders and Eng¬ 
lish clubs. I do not know, to my shame, any spot in my 
native land, where I should have been so warmly received 
by the same number of people. We were English boat¬ 
ing men, and the Belgian boating men fell upon our 
necks. I wonder if French Huguenots were as cordially 
greeted by English Protestants when they came across the 
Channel out of great tribulation. But, after all, what 
religion knits people so closely as common sport ? 

The canoes were carried into the boathouse; they 
were washed down for us by the club servants, the sails 
were hung out to dry, and everything made as snug and 
tidy as a picture. And in the meanwhile we were led 
upstairs by our new-found brethren, for so more than one 
of them stated the relationship, and made free of their 
lavatory. This one lent us soap, that one a towel, a third 
and fourth helped us to undo our bags. And all the time 
such questions, such assurances of respect and sympathy! 
I declare I never knew what glory was before. 

“Yes, yes, the Royal Sport Nautique is the oldest club 
in Belgium.” 

“We number two hundred.” 

“We” — this is not a substantive speech, but an ab¬ 
stract of many speeches, the impression left upon my mind 
after a great deal of talk; and very youthful, pleasant, 


20 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


natural, and patriotic it seems to me to be — “ We have 
gained all races, except those where we were cheated by 
the French.” 

“You must leave all your wet things to be dried.” 

“ O! entre freres! In any boathouse in England we 
should find the same.” (I cordially hope they might.) 

“ En Angleterre, vous employez des sliding-seats, n’est-ce 
pas?” 

“We are all employed in commerce during the day; 
but in the evening, voyez-vous, nous sommes serieux” 

These were the words. They were all employed over 
the frivolous mercantile concerns of Belgium during the 
day; but in the evening they found some hours for the 
serious concerns of life. I may have a wrong idea of wis¬ 
dom, but I think that was a very wise remark. People 
connected with literature and philosophy are busy all 
their days in getting rid of secondhand notions and false 
standards. It is their profession, in the sweat of their 
brows, by dogged thinking, to recover their old fresh view 
of life, and distinguish what they really and originally 
like from what they have only learned to tolerate per¬ 
force. And these Royal Nautical Sportsmen had the dis¬ 
tinction still quite legible in their hearts. They had 
still those clean perceptions of what is nice and nasty, 
what is interesting and what is dull, which envious old 
gentlemen refer to as illusions. The nightmare illusion 
of middle age, the bear’s hug of custom gradually squeez¬ 
ing the life out of a man’s soul, had not yet begun for these 
happy-star’d young Belgians. They still knew that the 
interest they took in their business was a trifling affair 
compared to their spontaneous, long-suffering affection 


THE ROYAL SPORT NAUTIQUE 


21 


for nautical sports. To know what you prefer, instead 
of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you 
ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive. Such a 
man may be generous; he may be honest in something 
more than the commercial sense; he may love his friends 
with an elective, personal sympathy, and not accept them 
as an adjunct of the station to which he has been called. 
He may be a man, in short, acting on his own instincts, 
keeping in his own shape that God made him in; and not 
a mere crank in the social engine house, welded on prin¬ 
ciples that he does not understand, and for purposes that 
he does not care for. 

For will any one dare to tell me that business is more 
entertaining than fooling among boats? He must have 
never seen a boat, or never seen an office, who says so. 
And for certain the one is a great deal better for the health. 
There should be nothing so much a man’s business as his 
amusements. Nothing but money-grubbing can be put 
forward to the contrary; no one but 

Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell 

From Heaven, 

durst risk a word in answer. It is but a lying cant that 
would represent the merchant and the banker as people 
disinterestedly toiling for mankind, and then most useful 
when they are most absorbed in their transactions; for 
the man is more important than his services. And when 
my Royal Nautical Sportsman shall have so far fallen 
from his hopeful youth that he cannot pluck up an en¬ 
thusiasm over anything but his ledger, I venture to doubt 
whether he will be near so nice a fellow, and whether he 


22 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


would welcome, with so good a grace, a couple of drenched 
Englishmen paddling into Brussels in the dusk. 

When we had changed our wet clothes and drunk a 
glass of pale ale to the club’s prosperity, one of their num¬ 
ber escorted us to a hotel. He would not join us at our 
dinner, but he had no objection to a glass of wine. En¬ 
thusiasm is very wearing; and I begin to understand why 
prophets were unpopular in Judaea, where they were best 
known. For three stricken hours did this excellent young 
man sit beside us to dilate on boats and boat races; and 
before he left, he was kind enough to order our bedroom 
candles. 

We endeavored now and again to change the subject; 
but the diversion did not last a moment: the Royal Nauti¬ 
cal Sportsman bridled, shied, answered the question, and 
then breasted once more into the swelling tide of his sub¬ 
ject. I call it his subject; but I think it was he who was 
subjected. The Arethusa, who holds all racing as a crea¬ 
ture of the devil, found himself in a pitiful dilemma. He 
durst not own his ignorance for the honor of old England, 
and spoke away about English clubs and English oarsmen 
whose fame had never before come to his ears. Several 
times, and once, above all, on the question of sliding- 
seats, he was within an ace of exposure. As for the Ciga¬ 
rette, who has rowed races in the heat of his blood, but now 
disowns these slips of his wanton youth, his case was still 
more desperate; for the Royal Nautical proposed that 
he should take an oar in one of their eights on the mor¬ 
row, to compare the English with the Belgian stroke. I 
could see my friend perspiring in his chair whenever that 
particular topic came up. And there was yet another pro- 


THE ROYAL SPORT NAUTIQUE 


23 


posal which had the same effect on both of us. It appeared 
that the champion canoeist of Europe (as well as most 
other champions) was a Royal Nautical Sportsman. And 
if we would only wait until the Sunday, this infernal pad- 
dler would be so condescending as to accompany us on 
our next stage. Neither of us had the least desire to drive 
the coursers of the sun against Apollo. 

When the young man was gone, we countermanded our 
candles, and ordered some brandy and water. The great 
billows had gone over our head. The Royal Nautical 
Sportsmen were as nice young fellows as a man would 
wish to see, but they were a trifle too young and a thought 
too nautical for us. We began to see that we were old 
and cynical; we liked ease and the agreeable rambling 
of the human mind about this and the other subject; we 
did not want to disgrace our native land by messing at 
eight, or toiling pitifully in the wake of the champion 
canoeist. In short, we had recourse to flight. It seemed 
ungrateful, but we tried to make that good on a card loaded 
with sincere compliments. And indeed it was no time for 
scruples ; we seemed to feel the hot breath of the champion 
on our necks. 









AT MAUBEUGE 


Partly from the terror we had of our good friends the 
Royal Nauticals, partly from the fact that there were no 
fewer than fifty-five locks between Brussels and Char¬ 
leroi, we concluded that we should travel by train across 
the frontier, boats and all. Fifty-five locks in a day’s 
journey was pretty well tantamount to trudging the 
whole distance on foot, with the canoes upon our shoulders, 
an object of astonishment to the trees on the canal side, 
and of honest derision to all right-thinking children. 

To pass the frontier, even in a train, is a difficult matter 
for the Arethusa. He is, somehow or other, a marked 
man for the official eye. Wherever he journeys, there 
are the officers gathered together. Treaties are solemnly 
signed, foreign ministers, ambassadors, and consuls sit 
throned in state from China to Peru, and the union jack 
flutters on all the winds of heaven. Under these safe¬ 
guards, portly clergymen, schoolmistresses, gentlemen in 
grey tweed suits, and all the ruck and rabble of British 
touristry pour unhindered, Murray in hand, over the rail¬ 
ways of the Continent, and yet the slim person of the Are- 
thusa is taken in the meshes, while these great fish go on 
their way rejoicing. If he travels without a passport, 
he is cast, without any figure about the matter, into noi¬ 
some dungeons; if his papers are in order, he is suffered 
to go his way indeed, but not until he has been humiliated 
25 


26 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


by a general incredulity. He is a born British subject, 
yet he has never succeeded in persuading a single official 
of his nationality. He flatters himself he is indifferent 
honest; yet he is rarely known for anything better than 
a spy, and there is no absurd and disreputable means of 
livelihood but has been attributed to him in some heat of 
official or popular distrust. . . . 

For the life of me I cannot understand it. I, too, have 
been knolled to church and sat at good men’s feasts, but 
I bear no mark of it. I am as strange as a Jack Indian 
to their official spectacles. I might come from any part 
of the globe, it seems, except from where I do. My an¬ 
cestors have labored in vain, and the glorious Constitu¬ 
tion cannot protect me in my walks abroad. It is a great 
thing, believe me, to present a good normal type of the 
nation you belong to. 

Nobody else was asked for his papers on the way to Mau- 
beuge, but I was; and although I clung to my rights, I 
had to choose at last between accepting the humiliation 
and being left behind by the train. I was sorry to give 
way, but I wanted to get to Maubeuge. 

Maubeuge is a fortified town with a very good inn, the 
Grand Cerf. It seemed to be inhabited principally by 
soldiers and bagmen; at least, these were all that we saw 
except the hotel servants. We had to stay there some 
time, for the canoes were in no hurry to follow us, and at 
last stuck hopelessly in the customhouse until we went 
back to liberate them. There was nothing to do, nothing 
to see. We had good meals, which was a great matter, 
but that was all. 

The Cigarette was nearly taken up upon a charge of 


AT MAUBEUGE 


27 


drawing the fortifications: a feat of which he was hope¬ 
lessly incapable. And besides, as I suppose each bellig¬ 
erent nation has a plan of the other’s fortified places al¬ 
ready, these precautions are of the nature of shutting the 
stable door after the steed is away. But I have no doubt 
they help to keep up a good spirit at home. It is a great 
thing if you can persuade people that they are somehow 
or other partakers in a mystery. It makes them feel 
bigger. Even the Freemasons, who have been shown up 
to satiety, preserve a kind of pride; and not a grocer 
among them, however honest, harmless, and empty-headed 
he may feel himself to be at bottom, but comes home from 
one of their coenacula with a portentous significance for 
himself. 

It is an odd thing how happily two people, if there are 
two, can live in a place where they have no acquaintance. 
I think the spectacle of a whole life in which you have 
no part paralyzes personal desire. You are content to 
become a mere spectator. The baker stands in his door; 
the colonel with his three medals goes by to the cafe at 
night; the troops drum and trumpet and man the ram¬ 
parts as bold as so many lions. It would task language 
to say how placidly you behold all this. In a place where 
you have taken some root you are provoked out of your 
indifference; you have a hand in the game, — your friends 
are fighting with the army. But in a strange town, not 
small enough to grow too soon familiar, nor so large as to 
have laid itself out for travelers, you stand so far apart 
from the business that you positively forget it would be 
possible to go nearer; you have so little human interest 
around you that you do not remember yourself to be a 


28 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


man. Perhaps in a very short time you would be one no 
longer. Gymnosophists go into a wood with all nature 
seething around them, with romance on every side; it 
would be much more to the purpose if they took up their 
abode in a dull country town where they should see just 
so much of humanity as to keep them from desiring more, 
and only the stale externals of man’s life. These externals 
are as dead to us as so many formalities, and speak a dead 
language in our eyes and ears. They have no more mean¬ 
ing than an oath or a salutation. We are so much accus¬ 
tomed to see married couples going to church of a Sunday 
that we have clean forgotten what they represent; and 
novelists are driven to rehabilitate adultery, no less, when 
they wish to show us what a beautiful thing it is for a man 
and a woman to live for each other. 

One person in Maubeuge, however, showed me some¬ 
thing more than his outside. That was the driver of the 
hotel omnibus: a mean enough looking little man, as 
well as I can remember, but with a spark of something 
human in his soul. He had heard of our little journey, 
and came to me at once in envious sympathy. How he 
longed to travel! he told me. How he longed to be some¬ 
where else, and see the round world before he went into the 
grave! “Here I am,” said he. “I drive to the station. 
Well. And then I drive back again to the hotel. And 
so on every day and all the week round. My God, is that 
life?” I could not say I thought it was — for him. He 
pressed me to tell him where I had been, and where I hoped 
to go; and as he listened, I declare the fellow sighed. 
Might not this have been a brave African traveler, or 
gone to the Indies after Drake ? But it is an evil age for 


AT MAUBEUGE 


29 


the gipsily inclined among men. He who can sit squarest 
on a three-legged stool, he it is who has the wealth and 
glory. 

I wonder if my friend is still driving the omnibus for 
the Grand Cerf! Not very likely, I believe; for I think 
he was on the eve of mutiny when we passed through, 
and perhaps our passage determined him for good. Better 
a thousand times that he should be a tramp, and mend 
pots and pans by the wayside, and sleep under trees, and 
see the dawn and the sunset every day above a new hori¬ 
zon. I think I hear you say that it is a respectable posi¬ 
tion to drive an omnibus? Very well. What right has 
he who likes it not to keep those who would like it dearly 
out of this respectable position ? Suppose a dish were not 
to my taste, and you told me that it was a favorite among 
the rest of the company, what should I conclude from that ? 
Not to finish the dish against my stomach, I suppose. 

Respectability is a very good thing in its way, but it 
does not rise superior to all considerations. I would not 
for a moment venture to hint that it was a matter of taste; 
but I think I will go as, far as this: that if a position is 
admittedly unkind, uncomfortable, unnecessary, and super¬ 
fluously useless, although it were as respectable as the 
Church of England, the sooner a man is out of it, the better 
for himself, and all concerned. 


ON THE SAMBRE CANALIZED 


TO QUARTES 

About three in the afternoon the whole establishment 
of the Grand Cerf accompanied us to the water’s edge. 
The man of the omnibus was there with haggard eyes. 
Poor cage-bird! Do I not remember the time when I 
myself haunted the station, to watch train after train 
carry its complement of freemen into the night, and 
read the names of distant places on the time bills with 
indescribable longings ? 

We were not clear of the fortifications before the rain 
began. The wind was contrary, and blew in furious 
gusts; nor were the aspects of nature any more clement 
than the doings of the sky. For we passed through a 
blighted country, sparsely covered with brush, but hand¬ 
somely enough diversified with factory chimneys. We 
landed in a soiled meadow among some pollards, and 
there smoked a pipe in a flaw of fair weather. But the 
wind blew so hard we could get little else to smoke. There 
were no natural objects in the neighborhood, but some 
sordid workshops. A group of children, headed by a tall 
girl, stood and watched us from a little distance all the 
time we stayed. I heartily wonder what they thought 
of us. 

At Hautmont, the lock was almost impassable; the 
30 


ON THE SAMBRE CANALIZED 


31 


landing place being steep and high, and the launch at a 
long distance. Near a dozen grimy workmen lent us a 
hand. They refused any reward; and, what is much 
better, refused it handsomely, without conveying any 
sense of insult. “ It is a way we have in our countryside,” 
said they. And a very becoming way it is. In Scotland, 
where also you will get services for nothing, the good 
people reject your money as if you had been trying to 
corrupt a voter. When people take the trouble to do dig¬ 
nified acts, it is worth while to take a little more, and 
allow the dignity to be common to all concerned. But 
in our brave Saxon countries, where we plod threescore 
years and ten in the mud, and the wind keeps singing in 
our ears from birth to burial, we do our good and bad with 
a high hand and almost offensively; and make even our 
alms a witness-bearing and an act of war against the 
wrong. 

After Hautmont, the sun came forth again and the wind 
went down; and a little paddling took us beyond the 
iron works and through a delectable land. The river 
wound among low hills, so that sometimes the sun was at 
our backs and sometimes it stood right ahead, and the 
river before us was one sheet of intolerable glory. On 
either hand meadows and orchards bordered, with a mar¬ 
gin of sedge and water flowers, upon the river. The 
hedges were of great height, woven about the trunks of 
hedgerow elms; and the fields, as they were often very 
small, looked like a series of bowers along the stream. 
There was never any prospect; sometimes a hilltop with 
its trees would look over the nearest hedgerow, just to 
make a middle distance for the sky; but that was all. 


32 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


The heaven was bare of clouds. The atmosphere, after 
the rain, was of enchanting purity. The river doubled 
among the hillocks, a shining strip of mirror glass; and 
the dip of the paddles set the flowers shaking along the 
brink. 

In the meadows wandered black and white cattle fan¬ 
tastically marked. One beast, with a white head and the 
rest of the body glossy black, came to the edge to drink, 
and stood gravely twitching his ears at me as I went by, 
like some sort of preposterous clergyman in a play. A 
moment after I heard a loud plunge, and, turning my head, 
saw the clergyman struggling to shore. The bank had 
given way under his feet. 

Besides the cattle, we saw no living things except a 
few birds and a great many fishermen. These sat along 
the edges of the meadows, sometimes with one rod, some¬ 
times with as many as half a score. They seemed stupe¬ 
fied with contentment; and, when we induced them to 
exchange a few words with us about the weather, their 
voices sounded quiet and far away. There was a strange 
diversity of opinion among them as to the kind of fish 
for which they set their lures; although they were all 
agreed in this, that the river was abundantly supplied. 
Where it was plain that no two of them had ever caught 
the same kind of fish, we could not help suspecting that 
perhaps not any one of them had ever caught a fish at 
all. I hope, since the afternoon was so lovely, that they 
were one and all rewarded; and that a silver booty went 
home in every basket for the pot. Some of my friends 
would cry shame on me for this ; but I prefer a man were 
he only an angler, to the bravest pair of gills in all God’s 


ON THE SAMBRE CANALIZED 


33 


waters. I do not affect fishes unless when cooked in 
sauce; whereas an angler is an important piece of river 
scenery, and hence deserves some recognition among 
canoeists. He can always tell you where you are, after a 
mild fashion; and his quiet presence serves to accentuate 
the solitude and stillness, and remind you of the glittering 
citizens below your boat. 

The Sambre turned so industriously to and fro among 
his little hills that it was past six before we drew near 
the lock at Quartes. There were some children on the 
towpath, with whom the Cigarette fell into a chaffing talk 
as they ran along beside us. It was in vain that I warned 
him. In vain I told him in English that boys were the 
most dangerous creatures; and if once you began with 
them, it was safe to end in a shower of stones. For my 
own part, whenever anything was addressed to me, I 
smiled gently and shook my head, as though I were an 
inoffensive person inadequately acquainted with French. 
For indeed, I have had such an experience at home that 
I would sooner meet many wild animals than a troop of 
healthy urchins. 

But I was doing injustice to these peaceable young 
Hainaulters. When the Cigarette went off to make in¬ 
quiries, I got out upon the bank to smoke a pipe and 
superintend the boats, and became at once the center of 
much amiable curiosity. The children had been joined 
by this time by a young woman and a mild lad who had 
lost an arm; and this gave me more security. When I 
let slip my first word or so in French, a little girl nodded 
her head with a comical grown-up air. “Ah, you see,” 
she said, “he understands well enough now; he was just 


34 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


making believe.” And the little group laughed together 
very good-naturedly. 

They were much impressed when they heard we came 
from England; and the little girl proffered the informa¬ 
tion that England was an island “and a far way from 
here — bien loin d’ici .” 

“Ay, you may say that, a far way from here,” said the 
lad with one arm. 

I was nearly as homesick as ever I was in my life; they 
seemed to make it such an incalculable distance to the 
place where I first saw the day. 

They admired the canoes very much. And I observed 
one piece of delicacy in these children which is worthy of 
record. They had been deafening us for the last hundred 
yards with petitions for a sail; ay, and they deafened us 
to the same tune next morning when we came to start; 
but then, when the canoes were lying empty, there was no 
word of any such petition. Delicacy? or perhaps a bit 
of fear for the water in so crank a vessel ? I hate cynicism 
a great deal worse than I do the devil; unless, perhaps, 
the two were the same thing ? And yet ’tis a good tonic; 
the cold tub and bath towel of the sentiments; and posi¬ 
tively necessary to life in cases of advanced sensibility. 

From the boats they turned to my costume. They 
could not make enough of my red sash; and my knife 
filled them with awe. 

“They make them like that in England,” said the boy 
with one arm. I was glad he did not know how badly 
we make them in England nowadays. “They are for 
people who go away to sea,” he added, “and to defend 
one’s life against great fish.” 


ON THE SAMBRE CANALIZED 


35 


I felt I was becoming a more and more romantic figure 
to the little group at every word. And so I suppose I 
was. Even my pipe, although it was an ordinary French 
clay, pretty well “ trousered,” as they call it, would have 
a rarity in their eyes, as a thing coming from so far away. 
And if my feathers were not very fine in themselves, they 
were all from over seas. One thing in my outfit, however, 
tickled them out of all politeness; and that was the 
bemired condition of my canvas shoes. I suppose they 
were sure the mud at any rate was a home product. The 
little girl (who was the genius of the party) displayed her 
own sabots in competition; and I wish you could have 
seen how gracefully and merrily she did it. 

The young woman’s milk can, a great amphora of 
hammered brass, stood some way off upon the sward. I 
was glad of an opportunity to divert public attention 
from myself and return some of the compliments I had 
received. So I admired it cordially both for form and 
color, telling them, and very truly, that it was as beauti¬ 
ful as gold. They were not surprised. The things were 
plainly the boast of the countryside. And the children 
expatiated on the costliness of these amphorae, which sell 
sometimes as high as thirty francs apiece; told me how 
they were carried on donkeys, one on either side of the 
saddle, a brave caparison in themselves; and how they 
were to be seen all over the district, and at the larger 
farms in great number and of great size. 


PONT-SUR-SAMBRE 


WE ARE PEDLARS 

The Cigarette returned with good news. There were 
beds to be had some ten minutes’ walk from where we 
were, at a place called Pont. We stowed the canoes in a 
granary, and asked among the children for a guide. The 
circle at once widened round us, and our offers of reward 
were received in dispiriting silence. We were plainly a 
pair of Bluebeards to the children; they might speak to 
us in public places, and where they had the advantage of 
numbers; but it was another thing to venture off alone 
with two uncouth and legendary characters, who had 
dropped from the clouds upon their hamlet this quiet 
afternoon, sashed and beknived, and with a flavor of 
great voyages. The owner of the granary came to our 
assistance, singled out one little fellow, and threatened 
him with corporalities; or I suspect we should have had 
to find the way for ourselves. As it was, he was more 
frightened at the granary man than the strangers, having 
perhaps had some experience of the former. But I fancy 
his little heart must have been going at a fine rate, for he 
kept trotting at a respectful distance in front, and looking 
back at us with scared eyes. Not otherwise may the 
children of the young world have guided Jove or one of 
his Olympian compeers on an adventure. 

36 


PONT-SUR-SAMBRE 


37 


A miry lane led us up from Quartes, with its church 
and bickering windmill. The hinds were trudging home¬ 
wards from the fields. A brisk little old woman passed 
us by. She was seated across a donkey between a pair 
of glittering milk cans, and, as she went, she kicked jaun¬ 
tily with her heels upon the donkey’s side, and scattered 
shrill remarks among the wayfarers. It was notable that 
none of the tired men took the trouble to reply. Our 
conductor soon led us out of the lane and across country. 
The sun had gone down, but the west in front of us was 
one lake of level gold. The path wandered awhile in the 
open, and then passed under a trellis like a bower indefi¬ 
nitely prolonged. On either hand were shadowy orchards ; 
cottages lay low among the leaves and sent their smoke 
to heaven; every here and there, in an opening, appeared 
the great gold face of the west. 

I never saw the Cigarette in such an idyllic frame of 
mind. He waxed positively lyrical in praise of country 
scenes. I was little less exhilarated myself; the mild 
air of the evening, the shadows, the rich lights, and the 
silence made a symphonious accompaniment about our 
walk; and we both determined to avoid towns for the 
future and sleep in hamlets. 

At last the path went between two houses, and turned 
the party out into a wide, muddy highroad, bordered, 
as far as the eye could reach on either hand, by an un¬ 
sightly village. The houses stood well back, leaving a 
ribbon of waste land on either side of the road, where 
there were stacks of firewood, carts, barrows, rubbish 
heaps, and a little doubtful grass. Away on the left, a 
gaunt tower stood in the middle of the street. What 



Pont-Sur-Sambre: The Tower 








PONT-SUR-SAMBRE 


39 


it had been in past ages I know not: probably a hold in 
time of war; but nowadays it bore an illegible dial plate 
in its upper parts, and near the bottom an iron letter box. 

The inn to which we had been recommended at Quartes 
was full, or else the landlady did not like our looks. I 
ought to say, that with our long, damp india-rubber bags, 
we presented rather a doubtful type of civilization: like 
rag-and-bone men, the Cigarette imagined. “ These gentle¬ 
men are pedlars ? — Ces messieurs sont des marchands f ” 
— asked the landlady. And then, without waiting for an 
answer, which I suppose she thought superfluous in so 
plain a case, recommended us to a butcher who lived hard 
by the tower and took in travelers to lodge. 

Thither went we. But the butcher was flitting, and 
all his beds were taken down. Or else he didn’t like our 
looks. As a parting shot, we had, “These gentlemen are 
pedlars ? ” 

It began to grow dark in earnest. We could no longer 
distinguish the faces of the people who passed us by with 
an inarticulate good evening. And the householders of 
Pont seemed very economical with their oil, for we saw 
not a single window lighted in all that long village. I 
believe it is the longest village in the world; but I dare 
say in our predicament every pace counted three times 
over. We were much cast down when we came to the 
last auberge, and, looking in at the dark door, asked 
timidly if we could sleep there for the night. A female 
voice assented, in no very friendly tones. We clapped 
the bags down and found our way to chairs. 

The place was in total darkness, save a red glow in the 
chinks and ventilators of the stove. But now the land- 


40 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


lady lit a lamp to see her new guests; I suppose the 
darkness was what saved us another expulsion, for I can¬ 
not say she looked gratified at our appearance. We were 
in a large, bare apartment, adorned with two allegorical 
prints of Music and Painting, and a copy of the Law 
against Public Drunkenness. On one side there was a 
bit of a bar, with some half a dozen bottles. Two labor¬ 
ers sat waiting supper, in attitudes of extreme weariness; 
a plain-looking lass bustled about with a sleepy child of 
two, and the landlady began to derange the pots upon the 
stove and set some beefsteak to grill. 

“These gentlemen are pedlars?” she asked sharply; 
and that was all the conversation forthcoming. We 
began to think we might be pedlars, after all. I never 
knew a population with so narrow a range of conjecture 
as the innkeepers of Pont-sur-Sambre. But manners and 
bearing have not a wider currency than bank notes. 
You have only to get far enough out of your beat, and 
all your accomplished airs will go for nothing. These 
Hainaulters could see no difference between us and the 
average pedlar. Indeed, we had some grounds for reflec¬ 
tion while the steak was getting ready, to see how per¬ 
fectly they accepted us at their own valuation, and how 
our best politeness and best efforts at entertainment 
seemed to fit quite suitably with the character of pack¬ 
men. At least it seemed a good account of the profession 
in France, that even before such judges we could not beat 
them at our own weapons. 

At last we were called to table. The two hinds (and 
one of them looked sadly worn and white in the face, 
as though sick with overwork and underfeeding) supped 


PONT-SUR-SAMBRE 


41 


off a single plate of some sort of bread berry, some pota¬ 
toes in their jackets, a small cup of coffee sweetened with 
sugar candy, and one tumbler of swipes. The landlady, 
her son, and the lass aforesaid took the same. Our meal 
was quite a banquet by comparison. We had some beef¬ 
steak, not so tender as it might have been, some of the 
potatoes, some cheese, an extra glass of the swipes, and 
white sugar in our coffee. 

You see what it is to be a gentleman, — I beg your 
pardon, what it is to be a pedlar. It had not before 
occurred to me that a pedlar was a great man in a labor¬ 
er’s alehouse; but now that I had to enact the part for 
the evening, I found that so it was. He has in his hedge 
quarters somewhat the same preeminency as the man 
who takes a private parlor in a hotel. The more you 
look into it the more infinite are the class distinctions 
among men; and possibly, by a happy dispensation there 
is no one at all at the bottom of the scale; no one but 
can find some superiority over somebody else, to keep up 
his pride withal. 

We were displeased enough with our fare. Particularly 
the Cigarette; for I tried to make believe that I was 
amused with the adventure, tough beefsteak and all. 
According to the Lucretian maxim, our steak should have 
been flavored by the look of the other people’s bread 
berry; but we did not find it so in practice. You may 
have a head knowledge that other people live more poorly 
than yourself, but it is not agreeable — I was going to 
say, it is against the etiquette of the universe — to sit at 
the same table and pick your own superior diet from 
among their crusts. I had not seen such a thing done 


42 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


since the greedy boy at school with his birthday cake. 
It was odious enough to witness, I could remember; and 
I had never thought to play the part myself. But there, 
again, you see what it is to be a pedlar. 

There is no doubt that the poorer classes in our country 
are much more charitably disposed than their superiors 
in wealth. And I fancy it must arise a great deal from 
the comparative indistinction of the easy and the not so 
easy in these ranks. A workman or a pedlar cannot 
shutter himself off from his less comfortable neighbors. 
If he treats himself to a luxury, he must do it in the face 
of a dozen who cannot. And what should more directly 
lead to charitable thoughts? . . . Thus the poor man, 
camping out in life, sees it as it is, and knows that every 
mouthful he puts in his belly has been wrenched out of 
the fingers of the hungry. 

But at a certain stage of prosperity, as in a balloon 
ascent, the fortunate person passes through a zone of 
clouds, and sublunary matters are thenceforward hidden 
from his view. He sees nothing but the heavenly bodies, 
all in admirable order and positively as good as new. He 
finds himself surrounded in the most touching manner 
by the attentions of Providence, and compares himself 
involuntarily with the lilies and the skylarks. He does 
not precisely sing, of course; but then he looks so unas¬ 
suming in his open Landau! If all the world dined at 
one table, this philosophy would meet with some rude 
knocks. 


PONT-SUR-SAMBRE 

THE TRAVELING MERCHANT 

Like the lackeys in Moliere’s farce, when the true 
nobleman broke in on their high life below stairs, we were 
destined to be confronted with a real pedlar. To make 
the lesson still more poignant for fallen gentlemen like 
us, he was a pedlar of infinitely more consideration than 
the sort of scurvy fellows we were taken for; like a lion 
among mice, or a ship of war bearing down upon two 
cockboats. Indeed, he did not deserve the name of 
pedlar at all; he was a traveling merchant. 

I suppose it was about half past eight when this worthy, 
Monsieur Hector Gilliard, of Maubeuge, turned up at the 
alehouse door in a tilt cart drawn by a donkey, and cried 
cheerily on the inhabitants. He was a lean, nervous 
flibbertigibbet of a man, with something the look of an 
actor and something the look of a horsejockey. He had 
evidently prospered without any of the favors of educa¬ 
tion, for he adhered with stern simplicity to the masculine 
gender, and in the course of the evening passed off some 
fancy futures in a very florid style of architecture. With 
him came his wife, a comely young woman, with her hair 
tied in a yellow kerchief, and their son, a little fellow of 
four, in a blouse and military kepi. It was notable that 
the child was many degrees better dressed than either of 
the parents. We were informed he was already at a 
43 


44 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


boarding school; but the holidays having just commenced, 
he was off to spend them with his parents on a cruise. An 
enchanting holiday occupation, was it not? to travel all 
day with father and mother in the tilt cart full of count¬ 
less treasures; the green country rattling by on either 
side, and the children in all the villages contemplating 
him with envy and wonder. It is better fun, during the 
holidays, to be the son of a traveling merchant, than son 
and heir to the greatest cotton spinner in creation. And 
as for being a reigning prince, — indeed, I never saw one 
if it was not Master Gilliard ! 

While M. Hector and the son of the house were putting 
up the donkey and getting all the valuables under lock 
and key, the landlady warmed up the remains of our beef¬ 
steak and fried the cold potatoes in slices, and Madame 
Gilliard set herself to waken the boy, who had come far 
that day, and was peevish and dazzled by the light. He 
was no sooner awake than he began to prepare himself 
for supper by eating galette, unripe pears, and cold pota¬ 
toes, with, so far as I could judge, positive benefit to his 
appetite. 

The landlady, fired with motherly emulation, awoke 
her own little girl, and the two children were confronted. 
Master Gilliard looked at her for a moment, very much 
as a dog looks at his own reflection in a mirror before he 
turns away. He was at that time absorbed in the galette. 
His mother seemed crestfallen that he should display so 
little inclination towards the other sex, and expressed 
her disappointment with some candor and a very proper 
reference to the influence of years. 

Sure enough a time will come when he will pay more 


PONT-SUR-SAMBRE 


45 


attention to the girls, and think a great deal less of his 
mother; let us hope she will like it as well as she seemed 
to fancy. But it is odd enough; the very women who 
profess most contempt for mankind as a sex seem to find 
even its ugliest particulars rather lively and high-minded 
in their own sons. 

The little girl looked longer and with more interest, 
probably because she was in her own house, while he was 
a traveler and accustomed to strange sights. And, be¬ 
sides, there was no galette in the case with her. 

All the time of supper there was nothing spoken of but 
my young lord. The two parents were both absurdly 
fond of their child. Monsieur kept insisting on his sagac¬ 
ity; how he knew all the children at school by name, 
and when this utterly failed on trial, how he was cautious 
and exact to a strange degree, and if asked anything, he 
would sit and think — and think, and if he did not know 
it, “ my faith, he wouldn’t tell you at all — ma foi, il ne 
vous le dir a pas” Which is certainly a very high degree 
of caution. At intervals, M. Hector would appeal to his 
wife, with his mouth full of beefsteak, as to the little 
fellow’s age at such or such a time when he had said or 
done something memorable; and I noticed that Madame 
usually poohpoohed these inquiries. She herself was not 
boastful in her vein; but she never had her fill of caress¬ 
ing the child; and she seemed to take a gentle pleasure 
in recalling all that was fortunate in his little existence. 
No schoolboy could have talked more of the holidays 
which were just beginning and less of the black school- 
time which must inevitably follow after. She showed, 
with a pride perhaps partly mercantile in origin, his 


46 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


pockets preposterously swollen with tops, and whistles, 
and string. When she called at a house in the way of 
business, it appeared he kept her company; and, when¬ 
ever a sale was made, received a sou out of the profit. 
Indeed, they spoiled him vastly, these two good people. 
But they had an eye to his manners, for all that, and 
reproved him for some little faults in breeding which 
occurred from time to time during supper. 

On the whole, I was not much hurt at being taken for 
a pedlar. I might think that I ate with greater delicacy, 
or that my mistakes in French belonged to a different 
order; but it was plain that these distinctions would be 
thrown away upon the landlady and the two laborers. 
In all essential things we and the Gilliards cut very much 
the same figure in the alehouse kitchen. M. Hector was 
more at home, indeed, and took a higher tone with the 
world; but that was explicable on the ground of his 
driving a donkey cart, while we poor bodies tramped 
afoot. I dare say the rest of the company thought us 
dying with envy, though in no ill sense, to be as far up in 
the profession as the new arrival. 

And of one thing I am sure; that every one thawed 
and became more humanized and conversible as soon as 
these innocent people appeared upon the scene. I would 
not very readily trust the traveling merchant with any 
extravagant sum of money, but I am sure his heart was 
in the right place. In this mixed world, if you can find 
one or two sensible places in a man; above all, if you 
should find a whole family living together on such pleasant 
terms, you may surely be satisfied, and take the rest for 
granted; or, what is a great deal better, boldly make up 


PONT-SUR-SAMBRE 


47 


your mind that you can do perfectly well without the 
rest, and that ten thousand bad traits cannot make a 
single good one any the less good. 

It was getting late. M. Hector lit a stable lantern 
and went off to his cart for some arrangement, and my 
young gentleman proceeded to divest himself of the better 
part of his raiment and play gymnastics on his mother’s 
lap, and thence on to the floor, with accompaniment of 
laughter. 

“Are you going to sleep alone?” asked the servant lass. 

“ There’s little fear of that,” says Master Gilliard. 

“You sleep alone at school,” objected his mother. 
“ Come, come, you must be a man.” 

But he protested that school was a different matter 
from the holidays; that there were dormitories at school, 
and silenced the discussion with kisses, his mother smiling, 
no one better pleased than she. 

There certainly was, as he phrased it, very little fear 
that he should sleep alone, for there was but one bed for 
the trio. We, on our part, had firmly protested against 
one man’s accommodation for two; and we had a double 
bedded pen in the loft of the house, furnished, beside the 
beds, with exactly three hat pegs and one table. There 
was not so much as a glass of water. But the window 
would open, by good fortune. 

Some time before I fell asleep the loft was full of the 
sound of mighty snoring; the Gilliards, and the laborers, 
and the people of the inn, all at it, I suppose, with one 
consent. The young moon outside shone very, clearly 
over Pont-sur-Sambre, and down upon the alehouse where 
all we pedlars were abed. 


ON THE SAMBRE CANALIZED 


TO LANDRECIES 

In the morning, when we came downstairs the land¬ 
lady pointed out to us two pails of water behind the street 
door. “ Voila de Veau pour nous debarbouiller,” says she. 
And so there we made a shift to wash ourselves, while 
Madame Gilliard brushed the family boots on the outer 
doorstep, and M. Hector, whistling cheerily, arranged 
some small goods for the day’s campaign in a portable 
chest of drawers, which formed a part of his baggage. 
Meanwhile the child was letting off Waterloo crackers 
all over the floor. 

I wonder, by the way, what they call Waterloo crackers 
in France; perhaps Austerlitz crackers. There is a great 
deal in the point of view. Do you remember the French¬ 
man who, traveling by way of Southampton, was put 
down in Waterloo Station, and had to drive across Water¬ 
loo Bridge? He had a mind to go home again, it seems. 

Pont itself is on the river, but whereas it is ten minutes’ 
walk from Quartes by dry land, it is six weary kilometers 
by water. We left our bags at the inn and walked to our 
canoes through the wet orchards unencumbered. Some 
of the children were there to see us off, but we were no 
longer the mysterious beings of the night before. A depar¬ 
ture is much less romantic than an unexplained arrival in 
48 


ON THE SAMBRE CANALIZED 


49 


the golden evening. Although we might be greatly taken 
at a ghost’s first appearance, we should behold him vanish 
with comparative equanimity. 

The good folks of the inn at Pont, when we called there 
for the bags, were overcome with marveling. At the 
sight of these two dainty little boats, with a fluttering 
union jack on each, and all the varnish shining from the 
sponge, they began to perceive that they had entertained 
angels unawares. The landlady stood upon the bridge, 
probably lamenting she had charged so little; the son 
ran to and fro, and called out the neighbors to enjoy the 
sight; and we paddled away from quite a crowd of rapt 
observers. These gentlemen pedlars, indeed! Now you 
see their quality too late. 

The whole day was showery, with occasional drenching 
plumps. We were soaked to the skin, then partially 
dried in the sun, then soaked once more. But there were 
some calm intervals, and one notably, when we were 
skirting the forest of Mormal, a sinister name to the ear, 
but a place most gratifying to sight and smell. It looked 
solemn along the riverside, drooping its boughs into the 
water, and piling them up aloft into a wall of leaves. 
What is a forest but a city of nature’s own, full of hardy 
and innocuous living things, where there is nothing dead 
and nothing made with the hands, but the citizens them¬ 
selves are the houses and public monuments? There is 
nothing so much alive and yet so quiet as a woodland; 
and a pair of people, swinging past in canoes, feel very 
small and bustling by comparison. 

And, surely, of all smells in the world the smell of many 
trees is the sweetest and most fortifying. The sea has a 


50 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


rude pistoling sort of odor, that takes you in the nostrils 
like snuff, and carries with it a fine sentiment of open 
water and tall ships; but the smell of a forest, which 
comes nearest to this in tonic quality, surpasses it by 
many degrees in the quality of softness. Again, the smell 
of the sea has little variety, but the smell of a forest is 
infinitely changeful; it varies with the hour of the day, 
not in strength merely, but in character; and the differ¬ 
ent sorts of trees, as you go from one zone of the wood to 
another, seem to live among different kinds of atmosphere. 
Usually the rosin of the fir predominates. But some 
woods are more coquettish in their habits ; and the breath 
of the forest Mormal, as it came aboard upon us that 
showery afternoon, was perfumed with nothing less deli¬ 
cate than sweetbrier. 

I wish our way had always lain among woods. Trees 
are the most civil society. An old oak that has been 
growing where he stands since before the Reformation, 
taller than many spires, more stately than the greater 
part of mountains, and yet a living thing, liable to sick¬ 
nesses and death, like you and me: is not that in itself 
a speaking lesson in history? But acres on acres full 
of such patriarchs contiguously rooted, their green tops 
billowing in the wind, their stalwart younglings pushing 
up about their knees ; a whole forest, healthy and beauti¬ 
ful, giving color to the light, giving perfume to the air; 
what is this but the most imposing piece in nature’s 
repertory? Heine wished to lie like Merlin under the 
oaks of Broceliande. I should not be satisfied with one 
tree; but if the wood grew together like a banyan grove, 
I would be buried under the taproot of the whole; my 


ON THE SAMBRE CANALIZED 


51 


parts should circulate from oak to oak; and my conscious¬ 
ness should be diffused abroad in all the forest, and give 
a common heart to that assembly of green spires, so that 
it, also, might rejoice in its own loveliness and dignity. 
I think I feel a thousand squirrels leaping from bough to 
bough in my vast mausoleum; and the birds and the 
winds merrily coursing over its uneven, leafy surface. 

Alas ! the forest of Mormal is only a little bit of a wood, 
and it was but for a little way that we skirted by its 
boundaries. And the rest of the time the rain kept com¬ 
ing in squirts and the wind in squalls, until one’s heart 
grew weary of such fitful, scolding weather. It was odd 
how the showers began when we had to carry the boats 
over a lock and must expose our legs. They always did. 
This is a sort of thing that readily begets a personal feel¬ 
ing against nature. There seems no reason why the 
shower should not come five minutes before or five min¬ 
utes after, unless you suppose an intention to affront you. 
The Cigarette had a mackintosh which put him more or 
less above these contrarieties. But I had to bear the 
brunt uncovered. I began to remember that nature was 
a woman. My companion, in a rosier temper, listened 
with great satisfaction to my jeremiads, and ironically 
concurred. He instanced, as a cognate matter, the action 
of the tides, “ which,” said he, “was altogether designed 
for the confusion of canoeists, except in so far as it was 
calculated to minister to a barren vanity on the part of 
the moon.” 

At the last lock, some little way out of Landrecies, I 
refused to go any farther; and sat in a drift of rain by the 
side of the bank, to have a reviving pipe. A vivacious 


52 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


old man, whom I took to have been the devil, drew near, 
and questioned me about our journey. In the fullness of 
my heart I laid bare our plans before him. He said it 
was the silliest enterprise that ever he heard of. Why, 
did I not know, he asked me, that it was nothing but 
locks, locks, locks, the whole way? not to mention that, 
at this season of the year, we would find the Oise quite 
dry? “Get into a train, my little young man,” said he, 
“and go you away home to your parents.” I was so 
astounded at the man’s malice that I could only stare at 
him in silence. A tree would never have spoken to me 
like this. At last I got out with some words. We had 
come from Antwerp already, I told him, which was a 
good long way; and we should do the rest in spite of him. 
Yes, I said, if there were no other reason, I would do it 
now, just because he had dared to say we could not. The 
pleasant old gentleman looked at me sneeringly, made an 
allusion to my canoe, and marched off, wagging his head. 

I was still inwardly fuming when up came a pair of 
young fellows, who imagined I was the Cigarette’s servant, 
on a comparison, I suppose, of my bare jersey with the 
other’s mackintosh, and asked me many questions about 
my place and my master’s character. I said he was a 
good enough fellow, but had this absurd voyage on the 
head. “Oh, no, no,” said one, “you must not say that; 
it is not absurd; it is very courageous of him.” I believe 
these were a couple of angels sent to give me heart again. 
It was truly fortifying to reproduce all the old man’s 
insinuations, as if they were original to me in my char¬ 
acter of a malcontent footman, and have them brushed 
away like so many flies by these admirable young men. 


ON THE SAMBRE CANALIZED 


53 


When I recounted this affair to the Cigarette , “They 
must have a curious idea of how English servants behave,” 
says he, drily, “for you treated me like a brute beast at 
the lock.” 

I was a good deal mortified; but my temper had suf¬ 
fered, it is a fact. 


AT LANDRECIES 


At Landrecies the rain still fell and the wind still blew; 
but we found a double-bedded room with plenty of furni¬ 
ture, real water jugs with real water in them, and dinner, 
a real dinner, not innocent of real wine. After having 
been a pedlar for one night, and a butt for the elements 
during the whole of the next day, these comfortable cir¬ 
cumstances fell on my heart like sunshine. There was 
an English fruiterer at dinner, traveling with a Belgian 
fruiterer; in the evening at the cafe we watched our com¬ 
patriot drop a good deal of money at corks, and I don’t 
know why, but this pleased us. 

It turned out that we were to see more of Landrecies 
than we expected; for the weather next day was simply 
bedlamite. It is not the place one would have chosen 
for a day’s rest, for it consists almost entirely of fortifi¬ 
cations. Within the ramparts, a few blocks of houses, 
a long row of barracks, and a church figure, with what 
countenance they may, as the town. There seems to be 
no trade, and a shopkeeper from whom I bought a six¬ 
penny flint and steel was so much affected that he filled 
my pockets with spare flints into the bargain. The only 
public buildings that had any interest for us were the hotel 
and the cafe. But we visited the church. There lies 
Marshal Clarke. But as neither of us had ever heard of 
54 


AT LANDRECIES 


55 


that military hero, we bore the associations of the spot 
with fortitude. 

In all garrison towns, guard calls, and reveilles, and such 
like, make a fine, romantic interlude in civic business. 
Bugles, and drums, and fifes are of themselves most excel¬ 
lent things in nature, and when they carry the mind to 
marching armies and the picturesque vicissitudes of war 
they stir up something proud in the heart. But in a 
shadow of a town like Landrecies, with little else moving, 
these points of war made a proportionate commotion. 
Indeed, they were the only things to remember. It was 
just the place to hear the round going by at night in the 
darkness, with the solid tramp of men marching, and the 
startling reverberations of the drum. It reminded you 
that even this place was a point in the great warfaring 
system of Europe, and might on some future day be ringed 
about with cannon smoke and thunder, and make itself 
a name among strong towns. 

The drum, at any rate, from its martial voice and 
notable physiological effect, nay, even from its cumbrous 
and comical shape, stands alone among the instruments 
of noise. And if it be true, as I have heard it said, that 
drums are covered with asses’ skin, what a picturesque 
irony is there in that! As if this long-suffering animal’s 
hide had not been sufficiently belabored during life, now 
by Lyonnese costermongers, now by presumptuous He¬ 
brew prophets, it must be stripped from his poor hinder 
quarters after death, stretched on a drum, and beaten 
night after night round the streets of every garrison town 
in Europe. And up the heights of Alma and Spicheren, 
and wherever death has his red flag a-flying, and sounds 


56 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


his own potent tuck upon the cannons, there also must the 
drummer boy, hurrying with white face over fallen com¬ 
rades, batter and bemaul this slip of skin from the loins 
of peaceable donkeys. 

Generally a man is never more uselessly employed than 
when he is at this trick of bastinadoing asses’ hide. We 
know what effect it has in life, and how your dull ass will 
not mend his pace with beating. But in this state of 
mummy and melancholy survival of itself, when the 
hollow skin reverberates to the drummer’s wrist, and 
each dub-a-dub goes direct to a man’s heart, and puts 
madness there, and that disposition of the pulses which 
we, in our big way of talking, nickname Heroism, — is 
there not something in the nature of a revenge upon the 
donkey’s persecutors ? Of old, he might say, you drubbed 
me up hill and down dale and I must endure; but now 
that I am dead those dull thwacks that were scarcely 
audible in country lanes have become stirring music in 
front of the brigade, and for every blow that you lay on 
my old greatcoat, you will see a comrade stumble and 
fall. 

Not long after the drums had passed the cafe, the 
Cigarette and the Arethusa began to grow sleepy, and set 
out for the hotel, which was only a door or two away. 
But although we had been somewhat indifferent to 
Landrecies, Landrecies had not been indifferent to us. 
All day, we learned, people had been running out between 
the squalls to visit our two boats. Hundreds of persons, 
so said report, although it fitted ill with our idea of the 
town, — hundreds of persons had inspected them where 
they lay in a coal shed. We were becoming lions in Lan- 


AT LANDRECIES 


57 


drecies, who had been only pedlars the night before in 
Pont. 

And now, when we left the cafe, we were pursued and 
overtaken at the hotel door by no less a person than the 
Juge de Paix; a functionary, as far as I can make out, of 
the character of a Scotch Sheriff Substitute. He gave 
us his card and invited us to sup with him on the spot, 
very neatly, very gracefully, as Frenchmen can do these 
things. It was for the credit of Landrecies, said he; and 
although we knew very well how little credit we could do 
the place, we must have been churlish fellows to refuse an 
invitation so politely introduced. 

The house of the judge was close by; it was a well- 
appointed bachelor's establishment, with a curious col¬ 
lection of old brass warming pans upon the walls. Some 
of these were most elaborately carved. It seemed a pic¬ 
turesque idea for a collector. You could not help think¬ 
ing how many nightcaps had wagged over these warming 
pans in past generations ; what jests may have been made 
and kisses taken while they were in service; and how 
often they had been uselessly paraded in the bed of death. 
If they could only speak at what absurd, indecorous, and 
tragical scenes had they not been present ? 

The wine was excellent. When we made the judge our 
compliments upon a bottle, “I do not give it you as my 
worst," said he. I wonder when Englishmen will learn 
these hospitable graces. They are worth learning; they 
set off life and make ordinary moments ornamental. 

There were two other Landrecienses present. One was 
the collector of something or other, I forget what; the 
other, we were told, was the principal notary of the place. 


58 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


So it happened that we all five more or less followed the 
law. At this rate, the talk was pretty certain to become 
technical. The Cigarette expounded the poor laws very 
magisterially. And a little later I found myself laying 
down the Scotch law of illegitimacy, of which I am glad 
to say I know nothing. The collector and the notary, 
who were both married men, accused the judge, who was 
a bachelor, of having started the subject. He deprecated 
the charge, with a conscious, pleased air, just like all the 
men I have ever seen, be they French or English. How 
strange that we should all, in our unguarded moments, 
rather like to be thought a bit of a rogue with the women ! 

As the evening went on the wine grew more to my 
taste; the spirits proved better than the wine; the com¬ 
pany was genial. This was the highest watermark of 
popular favor on the whole cruise. After all, being in 
a judge’s house, was there not something semiofficial in 
the tribute ? And so, remembering what a great country 
France is, we did full justice to our entertainment. Lan- 
drecies had been a long while asleep before we returned to 
the hotel; and the sentries on the ramparts were already 
looking for daybreak. 


SAMBRE AND OISE CANAL 


CANAL BOATS 

Next day we made a late start in the rain. The 
judge politely escorted us to the end of the lock under 
an umbrella. We had now brought ourselves to a 
pitch of humility, in the matter of weather, not often 
attained except in the Scotch Highlands. A rag of blue 
sky or a glimpse of sunshine set our hearts singing; 
and when the rain was not heavy we counted the day 
almost fair. 

Long lines of barges lay one after another along the 
canal, many of them looking mighty spruce and shipshape 
in their jerkin of Archangel tar picked out with white 
and green. Some carried gay iron railings and quite a 
parterre of flowerpots. Children played on the decks, 
as heedless of the rain as if they had been brought up on 
Loch Caron side; men fished over the gunwale, some of 
them under umbrellas; women did their washing; and 
every barge boasted its mongrel cur by way of watch¬ 
dog. Each one barked furiously at the canoes, running 
alongside until he had got to the end of his own ship, 
and so passing on the word to the dog aboard the next. 
We must have seen something like a hundred of these 
embarkations in the course of that day’s paddle, ranged 
59 









SAMBRE AND OISE CANAL 


61 


one after another like the houses in a street; and from 
not one of them were we disappointed of this accompa¬ 
niment. It was like visiting a menagerie, the Cigarette 
remarked. 

These little cities by the canal side had a very odd 
effect upon the mind. They seemed, with their flower¬ 
pots and smoking chimneys, their washings and dinners, 
a rooted piece of nature in the scene; and yet if only the 
canal below were to open, one junk after another would 
hoist sail or harness horses and swim away into all parts 
of France; and the impromptu hamlet would separate, 
house by house, to the four winds. The children who 
played together today by the Sambre and Oise Canal, 
each at his own father’s threshold, when and where might 
they next meet ? 

For some time past the subject of barges had occupied 
a great deal of our talk, and we had projected an old age 
on the canals of Europe. It was to be the most leisurely 
of progresses, now on a swift river at the tail of a steam¬ 
boat, now waiting horses for days together on some in¬ 
considerable junction. We should be seen pottering on 
deck in all the dignity of years, our white beards falling 
into our laps. We were ever to be busied among paint 
pots, so that there should be no white fresher and no green 
more emerald than ours, in all the navy of the canals. 
There should be books in the cabin, and tobacco jars, 
and some old Burgundy as red as a November sunset and 
as odorous as a violet in April. There should be a flageo¬ 
let whence the Cigarette, with cunning touch, should draw 
melting music under the stars; or perhaps, laying that 
aside, upraise his voice — somewhat thinner than of 


62 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


yore, and with here and there a quaver, or call it a natural 
grace note — in rich and solemn psalmody. 

All this simmering in my mind set me wishing to go 
aboard one of these ideal houses of lounging. I had 
plenty to choose from, as I coasted one after another and 
the dogs bayed at me for a vagrant. At last I saw a nice 
old man and his wife looking at me with some interest, 
so I gave them good day and pulled up alongside. I 
began with a remark upon their dog, which had somewhat 
the look of a pointer; thence I slid into a compliment on 
Madame’s flowers, and thence into a word in praise of 
their way of life. 

If you ventured on such an experiment in England 
you would get a slap in the face at once. The life would 
be shown to be a vile one, not without a side shot at your 
better fortune. Now, what I like so much in France is 
the clear, unflinching recognition by everybody of his own 
luck. They all know on which side their bread is but¬ 
tered, and take a pleasure in showing it to others, which 
is surely the better part of religion. And they scorn to 
make a poor mouth over their poverty, which I take to 
be the better part of manliness. I have heard a woman 
in quite a better position at home, with a good bit of 
money in hand, refer to her own child with a horrid whine 
as “a poor man’s child.” I would not say such a thing 
to the Duke of Westminster. And the French are full 
of this spirit of independence. Perhaps it is the result 
of republican institutions, as they call them. Much more 
likely it is because there are so few people really poor that 
the whiners are not enough to keep each other in coun¬ 
tenance. 


SAMBRE AND OISE CANAL 


63 


The people on the barge were delighted to hear that I 
admired their state. They understood perfectly well, 
they told me, how Monsieur envied them. Without 
doubt Monsieur was rich, and in that case he might make 
a canal boat as pretty as a villa — joli comme un chateau. 
And with that they invited me on board their own water 
villa. They apologized for their cabin; they had not been 
rich enough to make it as it ought to be. 

“ The fire should have been here, at this side,” explained 
the husband. “Then one might have a writing table in 
the middle — books — and” (comprehensively) “all. It 
would be quite coquettish — qa serait tout-d-fait coquet .” 
And he looked about him as though the improvements 
were already made. It was plainly not the first time that 
he had thus beautified his cabin in imagination; and 
when next he makes a hit, I should expect to see the writ¬ 
ing table in the middle. 

Madame had three birds in a cage. They were no great 
thing, she explained. Fine birds were so dear. They 
had sought to get a Hollandais last winter in Rouen 
(Rouen, thought I; and is this whole mansion, with its 
dogs, and birds, and smoking chimneys, so far a traveler 
as that, and as homely an object among the cliffs and 
orchards of the Seine as on the green plains of Sambre?) 

— they had sought to get a Hollandais last winter in 
Rouen; but these cost fifteen francs apiece — picture it 

— fifteen francs! 

“ Pour un tout petit oiseau — For quite a little bird,” 
added the husband. 

As I continued to admire, the apologetics died away, 
and the good people began to brag of their barge and 


64 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


their happy condition in life, as if they had been Emperor 
and Empress of the Indies. It was, in the Scotch phrase, 
a good hearing, and put me in good humor with the 
world. If people knew what an inspiriting thing it is to 
hear a man boasting, so long as he boasts of what he really 
has, I believe they would do it more freely and with a 
better grace. 

They began to ask about our voyage. You should 
have seen how they sympathized. They seemed half 
ready to give up their barge and follow us. But these 
canaletti are only gipsies semidomesticated. The semi¬ 
domestication came out in rather a pretty form. Sud¬ 
denly Madame’s brow darkened. “ Cependant,” she be¬ 
gan, and then stopped; and then began again by asking 
me if I were single. 

“Yes,” said I. 

“ And your friend who went by just now ? ” 

He also was unmarried. 

Oh, then, all was well. She could not have wives left 
alone at home; but since there were no wives in the 
question, we were doing the best we could. 

“To see about one in the world,” said the husband, 
“ il n’y a que ga — there is nothing else worth while. A 
man, look you, who sticks in his own village like a bear,” 
he went on, “ very well, he sees nothing. And then death 
is the end of all. And he has seen nothing.” 

Madame reminded her husband of an Englishman who 
had come up this canal in a steamer. 

“Perhaps Mr. Moens in the Ytene,” I suggested. 

“That’s it,” assented the husband. “He had his wife 
and family with him, and servants. He came ashore at 


SAMBRE AND OISE CANAL 


65 


all the locks and asked the name of the villages, whether 
from boatmen or lockkeepers; and then he wrote, wrote 
them down. Oh, he wrote enormously! I suppose it 
was a wager.” 

A wager was a common enough explanation for our own 
exploits, but it seemed an original reason for taking notes. 


THE OISE IN FLOOD 


Before nine next morning the two canoes were in¬ 
stalled on a light country cart at Etreux; and we were 
soon following them along the side of a pleasant valley 
full of hop gardens and poplars. Agreeable villages lay 
here and there on the slope of the hill: notably, Tupigny, 
with the hop poles hanging their garlands in the very 
street, and the houses clustered with grapes. There was 
a faint enthusiasm on our passage; weavers put their 
heads to the windows; children cried out in ecstasy at 
sight of the two “boaties ” — barquettes; and bloused 
pedestrians, who were acquainted with our charioteer, 
jested with him on the nature of his freight. 

We had a shower or two, but light and flying. The air 
was clean and sweet among all these green fields and 
green things growing. There was not a touch of autumn 
in the weather. And when, at Vadencourt, we launched 
from a little lawn opposite a mill, the sun broke forth and 
set all the leaves shining in the valley of the Oise. 

The river was swollen with the long rains. From Va¬ 
dencourt all the way to Origny it ran with ever-quickening 
speed, taking fresh heart at each mile, and racing as 
though it already smelt the sea. The water was yellow 
and turbulent, swung with an angry eddy among half-sub- 
merged willows, and made an angry clatter along stony 
shores. The course kept turning and turning in a nar- 
66 


THE OISE IN FLOOD 


67 


row and well-timbered valley. Now the river would ap¬ 
proach the side, and run gliding along the chalky base of 
the hill, and show us a few open colza fields among the 
trees. Now it would skirt the garden walls of houses, 
where we might catch a glimpse through a doorway, and 
see a priest pacing in the checkered sunlight. Again, the 
foliage closed so thickly in front that there seemed to be 
no issue; only a thicket of willows overtopped by elms 
and poplars, under which the river ran flush and fleet, 
and where a kingfisher flew past like a piece of the blue 
sky. On these different manifestations the sun poured its 
clear and catholic looks. The shadows lay as solid on 
the swift surface of the stream as on the stable meadows. 
The light sparkled golden in the dancing poplar leaves, 
and brought the hills into communion with our eyes. 
And all the while the river never stopped running or took 
breath; and the reeds along the whole valley stood shiv¬ 
ering from top to toe. 

There should be some myth (but if there is, I know it 
not) founded on the shivering of the reeds. There are 
not many things in nature more striking to man’s eye. 
It is such an eloquent pantomime of terror; and to see 
such a number of terrified creatures taking sanctuary in 
every nook along the shore is enough to infect a silly 
human with alarm. Perhaps they are only acold, and 
no wonder, standing waist deep in the stream. Or, per¬ 
haps, they have never got accustomed to the speed and 
fury of the river’s flux, or the miracle of its continuous 
body. Pan once played upon their forefathers; and so, 
by the hands of his river, he still plays upon these later 
generations down all the valley of the Oise; and plays the 


68 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


same air, both sweet and shrill, to tell us of the beauty 
and the terror of the world. 

The canoe was like a leaf in the current. It took it 
up and shook it, and carried it masterfully away, like a 
Centaur carrying off a nymph. To keep some command 
on our direction required hard and diligent plying of the 
paddle. The river was in such a hurry for the sea! 
Every drop of water ran in a panic, like so many people 
in a frightened crowd. But what crowd was ever so 
numerous or so single-minded? All the objects of sight 
went by at a dance measure; the eyesight raced with the 
racing river; the exigencies of every moment kept the 
pegs screwed so tight that our being quivered like a well- 
tuned instrument, and the blood shook off its lethargy, 
and trotted through all the highways and byways of 
the veins and arteries, and in and out of the heart, as if 
circulation were but a holiday journey and not the daily 
moil of threescore years and ten. The reeds might nod 
their heads in warning, and with tremulous gestures tell 
how the river was as cruel as it was strong and cold, and 
how death lurked in the eddy underneath the willows. 
But the reeds had to stand where they were; and those 
who stand still are always timid advisers. As for us, we 
could have shouted aloud. If this lively and beautiful 
river were, indeed, a thing of death’s contrivance, the old 
ashen rogue had famously outwitted himself with us. I 
was living three to the minute. I was scoring points 
against him every stroke of my paddle, every turn of the 
stream. I have rarely had better profit of my life. 

For I think we may look upon our little private war 
with death somewhat in this light. If a man knows he 


THE OISE IN FLOOD 


69 


will sooner or later be robbed upon a journey, he will have 
a bottle of the best in every inn, and look upon all his 
extravagances as so much gained upon the thieves. And 
above all, where, instead of simply spending, he makes 
a profitable investment for some of his money, when it 
will be out of risk of loss. So every bit of brisk living, 
and above all when it is healthful, is just so much gained 
upon the wholesale filcher, death. We shall have the 
less in our pockets, the more in our stomachs, when he 
cries, Stand and deliver. A swift stream is a favorite 
artifice of his, and one that brings him in a comfortable 
thing per annum; but when he and I come to settle our 
accounts I shall whistle in his face for these hours upon 
the upper Oise. 

Towards afternoon we got fairly drunken with the sun¬ 
shine and the exhilaration of the pace. We could no longer 
contain ourselves and our content. The canoes were too 
small for us; we must be out and stretch ourselves on 
shore. And so in a green meadow we bestowed our limbs 
on the grass, and smoked deifying tobacco, and proclaimed 
the world excellent. It was the last good hour of the day, 
and I dwell upon it with extreme complacency. 

On one side of the valley, high upon the chalky summit 
of the hill, a ploughman with his team appeared and 
disappeared at regular intervals. At each revelation he 
stood still for a few seconds against the sky, for all the 
world (as the Cigarette declared) like a toy Burns who had 
just ploughed up the Mountain Daisy. He was the 
only living thing within view, unless we are to count the 
river. 

On the other side of the valley a group of red roofs and 


70 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


a belfry showed among the foliage. Thence some inspired 
bell ringer made the afternoon musical on a chime of 
bells. There was something very sweet and taking in 
the air he played, and we thought we had never heard bells 
speak so intelligibly or sing so melodiously as these. It 
must have been to some such measure that the spinners 
and the young maids sang, ‘‘Come away, Death,” in the 
Shakespearian Illyria. There is so often a threatening 
note, something blatant and metallic, in the voice of 
bells, that I believe we have fully more pain than pleasure 
from hearing them; but these, as they sounded abroad, 
now high, now low, now with a plaintive cadence that 
caught the ear like the burden of a popular song, were 
always moderate and tunable, and seemed to fall in with 
the spirit of still, rustic places, like the noise of a water¬ 
fall or the babble of a rookery in spring. I could have 
asked the bell ringer for his blessing, good, sedate old 
man, who swung the rope so gently to the time of his 
meditations. I could have blessed the priest or the heri¬ 
tors, or whoever may be concerned with such affairs in 
France, who had left these sweet old bells to gladden the 
afternoon, and not held meetings, and made collections, 
and had their names repeatedly printed in the local paper, 
to rig up a peal of brand-new, brazen, Birmingham-hearted 
substitutes, who should bombard their sides to the provo¬ 
cation of a brand-new bell ringer, and fill the echoes of 
the valley with terror and riot. 

At last the bells ceased, and with their note the sun 
withdrew. The piece was at an end ; shadow and silence 
possessed the valley of the Oise. We took to the paddle 
with glad hearts, like people who have sat out a noble 


THE OISE IN FLOOD 


71 


performance and return to work. The river was more 
dangerous here; it ran swifter, the eddies were more 
sudden and violent. All the way down we had had our 
fill of difficulties. Sometimes it was a weir which could 
be shot, sometimes one so shallow and full of stakes that 
we must withdraw the boats from the water and carry 
them round. But the chief sort of obstacle was a conse¬ 
quence of the late high winds. Every two or three hun¬ 
dred yards a tree had fallen across the river, and usually 
involved more than another in its fall. Often there was 
free water at the end, and we could steer round the leafy 
promontory and hear the water sucking and bubbling 
among the twigs. Often, again, when the tree reached 
from bank to bank, there was room, by lying close, to 
shoot through underneath, canoe and all. Sometimes it 
was necessary to get out upon the trunk itself and pull 
the boats across; and sometimes, where the stream was 
too impetuous for this, there was nothing for it but to 
land and “carry over.” This made a fine series of 
accidents in the day’s career, and kept us aware of 
ourselves. 

Shortly after our reembarkation, while I was leading 
by a long way, and still full of a noble, exulting spirit in 
honor of the sun, the swift pace, and the church bells, 
the river made one of its leonine pounces round a corner, 
and I was aware of another fallen tree within a stone-cast. 
I had my backboard down in a trice, and aimed for a 
place where the trunk seemed high enough above the 
water, and the branches not too thick to let me slip be¬ 
low. When a man has just vowed eternal brotherhood 
with the universe he is not in a temper to take great 


72 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


determinations coolly, and this, which might have been a 
very important determination for me, had not been taken 
under a happy star. The tree caught me about the chest, 
and while I was yet struggling to make less of myself and 
get through, the river took the matter out of my hands 
and bereaved me of my boat. The Arethusa swung 
round broadside on, leaned over, ejected so much of me 
as still remained on board, and, thus disencumbered, 
whipped under the tree, righted, and went merrily away 
down stream. 

I do not know how long it was before I scrambled on 
to the tree to which I was left clinging, but it was longer 
than I cared about. My thoughts were of a grave and 
almost somber character, but I still clung to my paddle. 
The stream ran away with my heels as fast as I could 
pull up my shoulders, and I seemed, by the weight, to 
have all the water of the Oise in my trousers’ pockets. 
You can never know, till you try it, what a dead pull a 
river makes against a man. Death himself had me by 
the heels, for this was his last ambuscade, and he must 
now join personally in the fray. And still I held to my 
paddle. At last I dragged myself on to my stomach on 
the trunk, and lay there a breathless sop, with a mingled 
sense of humor and injustice. A poor figure I must 
have presented to Burns upon the hilltop with his team. 
But there was the paddle in my hand. On my tomb, if 
ever I have one, I mean to get these words inscribed: 
“He clung to his paddle.” 

The Cigarette had gone past awhile before; for, as I 
might have observed, if I had been a little less pleased 
with the universe at the moment, there was a clear way 


THE OISE IN FLOOD 


73 


round the tree top at the farther side. He had offered 
his services to haul me out, but, as I was then already 
on my elbows, I had declined and sent him down stream 
after the truant Arethusa. The stream was too rapid 
for a man to mount with one canoe, let alone two, upon 
his hands. So I crawled along the trunk to shore, and 
proceeded down the meadows by the riverside. I was so 
cold that my heart was sore. I had now an idea of my 
own why the reeds so bitterly shivered. I could have 
given any of them a lesson. The Cigarette remarked, 
facetiously, that he thought I was “taking exercise” as I 
drew near, until he made out for certain that I was only 
twittering with cold. I had a rubdown with a towel, 
and donned a dry suit from the india-rubber bag. But 
I was not my own man again for the rest of the voyage. 
I had a queasy sense that I wore my last dry clothes upon 
my body. The struggle had tired me; and, perhaps, 
whether I knew it or not, I was a little dashed in spirit. 
The devouring element in the universe had leaped out 
against me, in this green valley quickened by a running 
stream. The bells were all very pretty in their way, but 
I had heard some of the hollow notes of Pan’s music. 
Would the wicked river drag me down by the heels, 
indeed? and look so beautiful all the time? Nature’s 
good humor was only skin deep, after all. 

There was still a long way to go by the winding course 
of the stream, and darkness had fallen, and a late bell 
was ringing in Origny Sainte-Benoite when we arrived. 


ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE 


A BY-DAY 

The next day was Sunday, and the church bells had 
little rest; indeed, I do not think I remember anywhere 
else so great a choice of services as were here offered to 
the devout. And while the bells made merry in the sun¬ 
shine, all the world with his dog was out shooting among 
the beets and colza. 

In the morning a hawker and his wife went down the 
street at a footpace, singing to a very slow, lamentable 
music, “0 France, mes amours .” It brought everybody 
to the door; and when our landlady called in the man to 
buy the words, he had not a copy of them left. She was 
not the first nor the second who had been taken with the 
song. There is something very pathetic in the love of 
the French people, since the war, for dismal patriotic 
music-making. I have watched a forester from Alsace 
while some one was singing “ Les malheurs de la France ,” 
at a baptismal party in the neighborhood of Fontaine¬ 
bleau. He arose from the table and took his son aside, 
close by where I was standing. “Listen, listen,” he said, 
bearing on the boy’s shoulder, “and remember this, my 
son.” A little after he went out into the garden sud¬ 
denly, and I could hear him sobbing in the darkness. 

The humiliation of their arms and the loss of Alsace and 
Lorraine made a sore pull on the endurance of this sensi- 
74 


ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE 


75 


tive people; and their hearts are still hot, not so much 
against Germany as against the Empire. In what other 
country will you find a patriotic ditty bring all the world 
into the street? But affliction heightens love; and we 
shall never know we are Englishmen until we have lost 
India. Independent America is still the cross of my ex¬ 
istence; I cannot think of Farmer George without ab¬ 
horrence ; and I never feel more warmly to my own land 
than when I see the stars and stripes, and remember what 
our empire might have been. 

The hawker’s little book, which I purchased, was a 
curious mixture. Side by side with the flippant, rowdy 
nonsense of the Paris music halls there were many pas¬ 
toral pieces, not without a touch of poetry, I thought, 
and instinct with the brave independence of the poorer 
class in France. There you might read how the wood¬ 
cutter gloried in his axe, and the gardener scorned to be 
ashamed of his spade. It was not very well written, 
this poetry of labor, but the pluck of the sentiment re¬ 
deemed what was weak or wordy in the expression. The 
martial and the patriotic pieces, on the other hand, were 
tearful, womanish productions one and all. The poet 
had passed under the Caudine Forks ; he sang for an army 
visiting the tomb of its old renown, with arms reversed; 
and sang not of victory, but of death. There was a num¬ 
ber in the hawker’s collection called Consents Frangais , 
which may rank among the most dissuasive war lyrics on 
record. It would not be possible to fight at all in such a 
spirit. The bravest conscript would turn pale if such a 
ditty were struck up beside him on the morning of battle; 
and whole regiments would pile their arms to its tune. 


76 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


If Fletcher of Saltoun is in the right about the influence 
of national songs, you would say France was come to a 
poor pass. But the thing will work its own cure, and a 
sound-hearted and courageous people weary at length of 
sniveling over their disasters. Already Paul Deroulede 
has written some manly military verses. There is not 
much of the trumpet note in them, perhaps, to stir a 
man’s heart in his bosom; they lack the lyrical elation, 
and move slowly; but they are written in a grave, hon¬ 
orable, stoical spirit, which should carry soldiers far in 
a good cause. One feels as if one would like to trust 
Deroulede with something. It will be happy if he can 
so far inoculate his fellow-countrymen that they may be 
trusted with their own future. And, in the meantime, 
here is an antidote to “French Conscripts” and much 
other doleful versification. 

We had left the boats overnight in the custody of one 
whom we shall call Carnival. I did not properly catch 
his name, and perhaps that was not unfortunate for 
him, as I am not in a position to hand him down with 
honor to posterity. To this person’s premises we strolled 
in the course of the day, and found quite a little deputa¬ 
tion inspecting the canoes. There was a stout gentleman 
with a knowledge of the river, which he seemed eager to 
impart. There was a very elegant young gentleman in a 
black coat, with a smattering of English, who led the talk 
at once to the Oxford and Cambridge boat race. And then 
there were three handsome girls from fifteen to twenty; 
and an old gentleman in a blouse, with no teeth to speak 
of, and a strong country accent. Quite the pick of Origny, 
I should suppose. 


ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOiTE 


77 


The Cigarette had some mysteries to perform with his 
rigging in the coach house; so I was left to do the parade 
single-handed. I found myself very much of a hero 
whether I would or not. The girls were full of little shud- 
derings over the dangers of our journey. And I thought 
it would be ungallant not to take my cue from the ladies. 
My mishap of yesterday, told in an offhand way, pro¬ 
duced a deep sensation. It was Othello over again, with 
no less than three Desdemonas and a sprinkling of sym¬ 
pathetic senators in the background. Never were the 
canoes more flattered, or flattered more adroitly. 

“It is like a violin,” cried one of the girls in an ecstasy. 

“I thank you for the word, mademoiselle,” said I. 
“All the more since there are people who call out to me 
that it is like a coffin.” 

“ Oh! but it is really like a violin. It is finished like 
a violin,” she went on. 

“And polished like a violin,” added a senator. 

“One has only to stretch the cords,” concluded another, 
“and then tum-tumty-tum”; he imitated the result 
with spirit. 

Was not this a graceful little ovation? Where this 
people finds the secret of its pretty speeches I cannot 
imagine, unless the secret should be no othef 1 than a sin¬ 
cere desire to please. But then no disgrace is attached 
in France to saying a thing neatly; whereas in England, 
to talk like a book is to give in one’s resignation to society. 

The old gentleman in the blouse stole into the coach 
house, and somewhat irrelevantly informed the Cigarette 
that he was the father of the three girls and four more; 
quite an exploit for a Frenchman. 


78 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


“You are very fortunate,” answered the Cigarette 
politely. 

And the old gentleman, having apparently gained his 
point, stole away again. 

We all got very friendly together. The girls proposed 
to start with us on the morrow, if you please. And, jest¬ 
ing apart, every one was anxious to know the hour of our 
departure. Now, when you are going to crawl into your 
canoe from a bad launch, a crowd, however friendly, is 
undesirable, and so we told them not before twelve, and 
mentally determined to be off by ten at latest. 

Towards evening we went abroad again to post some 
letters. It was cool and pleasant; the long village was 
quite empty, except for one or two urchins who followed 
us as they might have followed a menagerie; the hills 
and the tree tops looked in from all sides through the 
clear air, and the bells were chiming for yet another 
service. 

Suddenly we sighted the three girls, standing, with a 
fourth sister, in front of a shop on the wide selvage of 
the roadway. We had been very merry with them a 
little while ago, to be sure. But what was the etiquette 
of Origny? Had it been a country road, of course we 
should have spoken to them; but here, under the eyes of 
all the gossips, ought we to do even as much as bow? 
I consulted the Cigarette. 

“Look,” said he. 

I looked. There were the four girls on the same spot; 
but now four backs were turned to us, very upright and 
conscious. Corporal Modesty had given the word of 
command, and the well-disciplined picket had gone right- 


ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE 


79 


about-face like a single person. They maintained this 
formation all the while we were in sight; but we heard 
them tittering among themselves, and the girl whom 
we had not met laughed with open mouth, and even 
looked over her shoulder at the enemy. I wonder was 
it altogether modesty after all, or in part a sort of country 
provocation ? 

As we were returning to the inn we beheld something 
floating in the ample field of golden evening sky, above 
the chalk cliffs and the trees that grow along their sum¬ 
mit. It was too high up, too large, and too steady for a 
kite; and, as it was dark, it could not be a star. For, 
although a star were as black as ink and as rugged as a 
walnut, so amply does the sun bathe heaven with radiance 
that it would sparkle like a point of light for us. The 
village was dotted with people with their heads in air; 
and the children were in a bustle all along the street and 
far up the straight road that climbs the hill, where we could 
still see them running in loose knots. It was a balloon, 
we learned, which had left St. Quentin at half-past five 
that evening. Mighty composedly the majority of the 
grown people took it. But we were English, and were 
soon running up the hill with the best. Being travelers 
ourselves in a small way, we would fain have seen these 
other travelers alight. 

The spectacle was over by the time we gained the top 
of the hill. All the gold had withered out of the sky, 
and the balloon had disappeared. Whither? I ask my¬ 
self ; caught up into the seventh heaven ? or come safely 
to land somewhere in that blue, uneven distance, into 
which the roadway dipped and melted before our eyes? 


80 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


Probably the aeronauts were already warming them¬ 
selves at a farm chimney, for they say it is cold in these 
unhomely regions of the air. The night fell swiftly. 
Roadside trees and disappointed sightseers, returning 
through the meadows, stood out in black against a margin 
of low, red sunset. It was cheerfuller to face the other 
way, and so down the hill we went, with a full moon, the 
color of a melon, swinging high above the wooded 
valley, and the white cliffs behind us faintly reddened by 
the fire of the chalk kilns. 

The lamps were lighted, and the salads were being made 
in Origny Sainte-Benoite by the river. 


ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE 

THE COMPANY AT TABLE 

Although we came late for dinner, the company at 
table treated us to sparkling wine. “That is how we are 
in France,” said one. “Those who sit down with us are 
our friends.” And the rest applauded. 

They were three altogether, and an odd trio to pass the 
Sunday with. 

Two of them were guests like ourselves, both men of 
the north. One ruddy, and of a full habit of body, with 
copious black hair and beard, the intrepid hunter of 
France, who thought nothing so small, not even a lark or 
minnow, but he might vindicate his prowess by its cap¬ 
ture. For such a great, healthy man, his hair flourish¬ 
ing like Samson’s, his arteries running buckets of red blood, 
to boast of these infinitesimal exploits, produced a feeling 
of disproportion in the world, as when a steam hammer is 
set to cracking nuts. The other was a quiet, subdued 
person, blond, and lymphatic, and sad, with something 
the look of a Dane : “ Tristes tetes de Danois ! ” as Gaston 
Lafenestre used to say. 

I must not let that name go by without a word for the 
best of all good fellows, now gone down into the dust. 
We shall never again see Gaston in his forest costume, — 
he was Gaston with all the world, in affection, not in dis- 
81 


82 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


respect, — nor hear him wake the echoes of Fontainebleau 
with the woodland horn. Never again shall his kind smile 
put peace among all races of artistic men, and make the 
Englishman at home in France. Never more shall the 
sheep, who were not more innocent at heart than he, sit 
all unconsciously for his industrious pencil. He died too 
early, at the very moment when he was beginning to put 
forth fresh sprouts and blossom into something worthy 
of himself; and yet none who knew him will think he lived 
in vain. I never knew a man so little, for whom yet I 
had so much affection; and I find it a good test of others, 
how much they had learned to understand and value him. 
His was, indeed, a good influence in life while he was still 
among us; he had a fresh laugh; it did you good to see 
him; and, however sad he may have been at heart, he 
always bore a bold and cheerful countenance and took 
fortune’s worst as it were the showers of spring. But 
now his mother sits alone by the side of Fontainebleau 
woods, where he gathered mushrooms in his hardy and 
penurious youth. 

Many of his pictures found their way across the Chan¬ 
nel; besides those which were stolen, when a dastardly 
Yankee left him alone in London with two English pence, 
and, perhaps, twice as many words of English. If any 
one who reads these lines should have a scene of sheep, 
in the manner of Jacques, with this fine creature’s signa¬ 
ture, let him tell himself that one of the kindest and brav¬ 
est of men has lent a hand to decorate his lodging. There 
may be better pictures in the National Gallery; but not 
a painter among the generations had a better heart. 
Precious in the sight of the Lord of humanity, the Psalms 


ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE 


83 


tell us, is the death of his saints. It had need to be pre¬ 
cious ; for it is very costly, when, by a stroke, a mother 
is left desolate, and the peacemaker and peace looker of 
a whole society is laid in the ground with Caesar and the 
Twelve Apostles. 

There is something lacking among the oaks of Fon¬ 
tainebleau ; and when the dessert comes in at Barbizon, 
people look to the door for a figure that is gone. 

The third of our companions at Origny was no less a 
person than the landlady’s husband; not properly the 
landlord, since he worked himself in a factory during the 
day, and came to his own house at evening as a guest; 
a man worn to skin and bone by perpetual excitement, 
with baldish head, sharp features, and swift, shining eyes. 
On Saturday, describing some paltry adventure at a 
duck hunt, he broke a plate into a score of fragments. 
Whenever he made a remark he would look all round the 
table with his chin raised and a spark of green light in 
either eye, seeking approval. His wife appeared now 
and again in the doorway of the room, where she was 
superintending dinner, with a “Henri, you forget your¬ 
self,” or a “Henri, you can surely talk without making 
such a noise.” Indeed, that was what the honest fellow 
could not do. On the most trifling matter his eyes kindled, 
his fist visited the table, and his voice rolled abroad in 
changeful thunder. I never saw such a petard of a man; 
I think the devil was in him. He had two favorite ex¬ 
pressions, “It is logical,” or “ illogical,” as the case might 
be; and this other thrown out with a certain bravado 
as a man might unfurl a banner, at the beginning of many 
a long and sonorous story : “I am a proletarian, you see.” 


84 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


Indeed, we saw it very well. God forbid that ever I 
should find him handling a gun in Paris streets. That 
will not be a good moment for the general public. 

I thought his two phrases very much represented the 
good and evil of his class, and, to some extent, of his 
country. It is a strong thing to say what one is, and 
not be ashamed of it; even although it be in doubtful 
taste to repeat the statement too often in one evening. 
I should not admire it in a duke, of course; but as times 
go the trait is honorable in a workman. On the other 
hand, it is not at all a strong thing to put one’s reliance 
upon logic; and our own logic particularly, for it is gen¬ 
erally wrong. We never know where we are to end if 
once we begin following words or doctors. There is an 
upright stock in a man’s own heart that is trustier than 
any syllogism; and the eyes, and the sympathies, and 
appetites know a thing or two that have never yet been 
stated in controversy. Reasons are as plentiful as black¬ 
berries; and, like fisticuffs, they serve impartially with 
all sides. Doctrines do not stand or fall by their proofs 
and are only logical in so far as they are cleverly put. 
An able controversialist no more than an able general 
demonstrates the justice of his cause. But France is all 
gone wandering after one or two big words; it will take 
some time before they can be satisfied that they are no 
more than words, however big; and, when once that is 
done, they will perhaps find logic less diverting. 

The conversation opened with details of the day’s 
shooting. When all the sportsmen of a village shoot 
over the village territory pro indiviso, it is plain that 
many questions of etiquette and priority must arise. 


ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOlTE 


85 


“Here now,” cried the landlord, brandishing a plate, 

| “here is a field of beetroot. Well. Here am I, then. 
I advance, do I not? Eh hien! sacristi” ; and the state¬ 
ment, waxing louder, rolls off into a reverberation of 
i oaths, the speaker glaring about for sympathy, and 
! everybody nodding his head to him in the name of peace. 

The ruddy Northman told some tales of his own prowess 
in keeping order: notably one of a Marquis. 

“Marquis,” I said, “if you take another step I fire 
upon you. You have committed a dirtiness, Marquis.” 

Whereupon, it appeared, the Marquis touched his cap 
and withdrew. 

The landlord applauded noisily. “It was well done,” 
he said. “He did all that he could. He admitted he 
was wrong.” And then oath upon oath. He was no 
marquis lover, either, but he had a sense of justice in him, 
this proletarian host of ours. 

From the matter of hunting, the talk veered into a 
general comparison of Paris and the country. The 
proletarian beat the table like a drum in praise of Paris. 
“What is Paris? Paris is the cream of France. There 
are no Parisians; it is you, and I, and everybody who are 
Parisians. A man has eighty chances per cent to get on 
in the world in Paris.” And he drew a vivid sketch of 
the workman in a den no bigger than a dog hutch, making 
articles that were to go all over the world. “Eh hien, 
quoi, c’est magnifique, ga!” cried he. 

The sad Northman interfered in praise of a peasant’s 
life; he thought Paris bad for men and women. “Cen¬ 
tralization,” said he — 

But the landlord was at his throat in a moment. It 



86 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


was all logical, he showed him, and all magnificent. 
“ What a spectacle ! What a glance for an eye ! ” And 
the dishes reeled upon the table under a cannonade of 
blows. 

Seeking to make peace, I threw in a word in praise of 
the liberty of opinion in France. I could hardly have 
shot more amiss. There was an instant silence and a 
great wagging of significant heads. They did not fancy 
the subject, it was plain, but they gave me to understand 
that the sad Northman was a martyr on account of his 
views. “Ask him a bit,” said they. “Just ask him.” 

“Yes, sir,” said he in his quiet way, answering me, 
although I had not spoken, “I am afraid there is less 
liberty of opinion in France than you may imagine.” 
And with that he dropped his eyes and seemed to consider 
the subject at an end. 

Our curiosity was mightily excited at this. How, or 
why, or when was this lymphatic bagman martyred? 
We concluded at once it was on some religious question, 
and brushed up our memories of the Inquisition, which 
were principally drawn from Poe’s horrid story, and the 
sermon in Tristram Shandy, I believe. 

On the morrow we had an opportunity of going further 
into the question; for when we rose very early to avoid 
a sympathizing deputation at our departure, we found 
the hero up before us. He was breaking his fast on white 
wine and raw onions, in order to keep up the character 
of martyr, I conclude. We had a long conversation, 
and made out what we wanted in spite of his reserve. 
But here was a truly curious circumstance. It seems 
possible for two Scotchmen and a Frenchman to discuss 


ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE 


87 


during a long half hour, and each nationality have a dif¬ 
ferent idea in view throughout. It was not till the very 
end that we discovered his heresy had been political, or 
that he suspected our mistake. The terms and spirit 
in which he spoke of his political beliefs were, in our eyes, 
suited to religious beliefs. And vice versa. 

Nothing could be more characteristic of the two coun¬ 
tries. Politics are the religion of France; as Nanty 

Ewart would have said, “A d-d bad religion,” while 

we, at home, keep most of our bitterness for all differences 
about a hymn book or a Hebrew word which, perhaps, 
neither of the parties can translate. And perhaps the 
misconception is typical of many others that may never 
be cleared up; not only between people of different race, 
but between those of different sex. 

As for our friend’s martyrdom, he was a Communist, 
or perhaps only a Communard, which is a very different 
thing, and had lost one or more situations in consequence. 
I think he had also been rejected in marriage; but per¬ 
haps he had a sentimental way of considering business 
which deceived me. He was a mild, gentle creature, 
anyway, and I hope he has got a better situation and 
married a more suitable wife since then. 



DOWN THE OISE 

TO MOY 

Carnival notoriously cheated us at first. Finding 
us easy in our ways, he regretted having let us off so 
cheaply, and, taking me aside, told me a cock-and-bull 
story, with the moral of another five francs for the nar¬ 
rator. The thing was palpably absurd; but I paid up, 
and at once dropped all friendliness of manner and kept 
him in his place as an inferior, with freezing British dignity. 
He saw in a moment that he had gone too far and killed 
a willing horse; his face fell; I am sure he would have 
refunded if he could only have thought of a decent pre¬ 
text. He wished me to drink with him, but I would none 
of his drinks. He grew pathetically tender in his profes¬ 
sions, but I walked beside him in silence or answered 
him in stately courtesies, and, when we got to the land¬ 
ing place, passed the word in English slang to the Cigarette. 

In spite of the false scent we had thrown out the day 
before, there must have been fifty people about the 
bridge. We were as pleasant as we could be with all 
but Carnival. We said good-bye, shaking hands with the 
old gentleman who knew the river and the young gentle¬ 
man who had a smattering of English, but never a word 
for Carnival. Poor Carnival, here was a humiliation. 
He who had been so much identified with the canoes, 
88 




DOWN THE OISE 


89 


who had given orders in our name, who had shown off 
the boats and even the boatmen like a private exhibition 
of his own, to be now so publicly shamed by the lions of 
his caravan! I never saw anybody look more crestfallen 
than he. He hung in the background, coming timidly 
forward ever and again as he thought he saw some symp¬ 
tom of a relenting humor and falling hurriedly back 
when he encountered a cold stare. Let us hope it will be 
a lesson to him. 

I would not have mentioned Carnival’s peccadillo had 
not the thing been so uncommon in France. This, for 
instance, was the only case of dishonesty or even sharp 
practice in our whole voyage. We talk very much about 
our honesty in England. It is a good rule to be on your 
guard wherever you hear great professions about a very 
little piece of virtue. If the English could only hear how 
they are spoken of abroad, they might confine themselves 
for awhile to remedying the fact, and perhaps even when 
that was done, give us fewer of their airs. 

The young ladies, the graces of Origny, were not present 
at our start; but when we got round to the second bridge, 
behold, it was black with sightseers! We were loudly 
cheered, and for a good way below young lads and lasses 
ran along the bank, still cheering. What with current 
and paddling, we were flashing along like swallows. It 
was no joke to keep up with us upon the woody shore. 
But the girls picked up their skirts, as if they were sure 
they had good ankles, and followed until their breath 
was out. The last to weary were the three graces and a 
couple of companions; and just as they, too, had had 
enough, the foremost of the three leaped upon a tree 


90 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


stump and kissed her hand to the canoeists. Not Diana 
herself, although this was more of a Venus, after all, 
could have done a graceful thing more gracefully. “ Come 
back again!” she cried; and all the others echoed her; 
and the hills about Origny repeated the words, “Come 
back.” But the river had us round an angle in a twinkling, 
and we were alone with the green trees and running water. 

Come back? There is no coming back, young ladies, 
on the impetuous stream of life. 

The merchant bows unto the seaman’s star, 

The ploughman from the sun his season takes. 

And we must all set our pocket watches by the clock of 
fate. There is a headlong, forthright tide, that bears 
away man with his fancies like straw, and runs fast in 
time and space. It is full of curves like this, your wind¬ 
ing river of the Oise; and lingers and returns in pleasant 
pastorals; and yet, rightly thought upon, never returns 
at all. For though it should revisit the same acre of 
meadow in the same hour, it will have made an ample 
sweep between whiles; many little streams will have 
fallen in; many exhalations risen towards the sun; and 
even although it were the same acre, it will not be the 
same river Oise. And thus, O graces of Origny, although 
the wandering fortune of my life should carry me back 
again to where you await death’s whistle by the river, 
that will not be the old I who walks the street; and 
those wives and mothers, say, will those be you ? 

There was never any mistake about the Oise, as a 
matter of fact. In these upper reaches it was still in a 
prodigious hurry for the sea. It ran so fast and merrily, 


DOWN THE OISE 


91 


through all the windings of its channel, that I strained my 
thumb fighting with the rapids, and had to paddle all the 
rest of the way with one hand turned up. Sometimes it 
had to serve mills; and being still a little river, ran very 
dry and shallow in the meanwhile. We had to put our 
legs out of the boat, and shove ourselves off the sand of 
the bottom with our feet. And still it went on its way sing¬ 
ing among the poplars, and making a green valley in the 
world. After a good woman, and a good book, and to¬ 
bacco, there is nothing so agreeable on earth as a river. 
I forgave it its attempt on my life; which was, after all, 
one part owing to the unruly winds of heaven that had 
blown down the tree, one part to my own mismanagement, 
and only a third part to the river itself, and that not out 
of malice, but from its great preoccupation over its own 
business of getting to the sea. A difficult business, too; 
for the detours it had to make are not to be counted. 
The geographers seem to have given up the attempt; 
for I found no map represent the infinite contortion of its 
course. A fact will say more than any of them. After 
we had been some hours, three, if I mistake not, flitting 
by the trees at this smooth, breakneck gallop, when we 
came upon a hamlet and asked where we were, we had 
got no further than four kilometres (say two miles and a 
half) from Origny. If it were not for the honor of the 
thing (in the Scotch saying), we might almost as well have 
been standing still. 

We lunched on a meadow inside a parallelogram of 
poplars. The leaves danced and prattled in the wind 
all around about us. The river hurried on meanwhile, 
and seemed to chide at our delay. Little we cared. The 


92 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


river knew where it was going; not so we; the less our 
hurry, where we found good quarters, and a pleasant 
theater for a pipe. At that hour stockbrokers were 
shouting in Paris Bourse for two or three per cent; but 
we minded them as little as the sliding stream, and sac¬ 
rificed a hecatomb of minutes to the gods of tobacco and 
digestion. Hurry is the resource of the faithless. Where 
a man can trust his own heart, and those of his friends, to¬ 
morrow is as good as today. And if he die in the mean¬ 
while, why, then, there he dies, and the question is solved. 

We had to take to the canal in the course of the after¬ 
noon ; because where it crossed the river there was, not 
a bridge, but a siphon. If it had not been for an excited 
fellow on the bank we should have paddled right into the 
siphon, and thenceforward not paddled any more. We 
met a man, a gentleman, on the towpath, who was much 
interested in our cruise. And I was witness to a strange 
seizure of lying suffered by the Cigarette; who, because his 
knife came from Norway, narrated all sorts of adventures 
in that country, where he has never been. He was quite 
feverish at the end, and pleaded demoniacal possession. 

Moy (pronounce Moy) was a pleasant little village, 
gathered round a chateau in a moat. The air was per¬ 
fumed with hemp from neighboring fields. At the Golden 
Sheep we found excellent entertainment. German shells 
from the siege of La Fere, Niirnberg figures, goldfish in a 
bowl, and all manner of knickknacks, embellished the 
public room. The landlady was a stout, plain, short¬ 
sighted, motherly body, with something not far short of 
a genius for cookery. She had a guess of her excellence 
herself. After every dish was sent in, she would come 


DOWN THE OISE 


93 


and look on at the dinner for awhile, with puckered, 
blinking eyes. “C’est bon, n’est-ce pas?” she would say; 
and, when she had received a proper answer, she disap¬ 
peared into the kitchen. That common French dish, 
partridge and cabbages, became a new thing in my eyes 
at the Golden Sheep; and many subsequent dinners have 
bitterly disappointed me in consequence. Sweet was 
our rest in the Golden Sheep at Moy. 


LA FERE OF CURSED MEMORY 


We lingered in Moy a good part of the day, for we were 
fond of being philosophical, and scorned long journeys 
and early starts on principle. The place, moreover, in¬ 
vited to repose. People in elaborate shooting costumes 
sallied from the chateau with guns and game bags; and 
this was a pleasure in itself, to remain behind while these 
elegant pleasure seekers took the first of the morning. 
In this way all the world may be an aristocrat, and play 
the duke among marquises, and the reigning monarch 
among dukes, if he will only outvie them in tranquillity. 
An imperturbable demeanor comes from perfect patience. 
Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go 
on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, 
like a clock during a thunderstorm. 

We made a very short day of it to La Fere; but the dusk 
was falling and a small rain had begun before we stowed 
the boats. La Fere is a fortified town in a plain, and has 
two belts of rampart. Between the first and the second 
extends a region of waste land and cultivated patches. 
Here and there along the wayside were posters forbidding 
trespass in the name of military engineering. At last a 
second gateway admitted us to the town itself. Lighted 
windows looked gladsome, whiffs of comfortable cookery 
came abroad upon the air. The town was full of the mili¬ 
tary reserve, out for the French Autumn manoeuvres, 
94 


LA FfiRE OF CURSED MEMORY 


95 


and the reservists walked speedily and wore their for¬ 
midable greatcoats. It was a fine night to be within 
doors over dinner, and hear the rain upon the windows. 

The Cigarette and I could not sufficiently congratulate 
each other on the prospect, for we had been told there was 
a capital inn at La Fere. Such a dinner as we were going 
to eat! such beds as we were to sleep in ! and all the while 
the rain raining on houseless folk over all the poplared 
countryside. It made our mouths water. The inn bore 
the name of some woodland animal, stag, or hart, or hind, 
I forget which. But I shall never forget how spacious and 
how eminently habitable it looked as we drew near. The 
carriage entry was lighted up not by intention, but from 
the mere superfluity of fire and candle in the house. A 
rattle of many dishes came to our ears ; we sighted a great 
field of tablecloth; the kitchen glowed like a forge and 
smelt like a garden of things to eat. 

Into this, the inmost shrine and physiological heart of 
a hostelry, with all its furnaces in action and all its dressers 
charged with viands, you are now to suppose us making 
our triumphal entry, a pair of damp rag-and-bone men, 
each with a limp india-rubber bag upon his arm. I do 
not believe I have a sound view of that kitchen; I saw 
it through a sort of glory, but it seemed to me crowded 
with the snowy caps of cookmen, who all turned round 
from their saucepans and looked at us with surprise. 
There was no doubt about the landlady, however; there 
she was, heading her army, a flushed, angry woman, full 
of affairs. Her I asked politely — too politely, thinks 
the Cigarette — if we could have beds, she surveying us 
coldly from head to foot. 


96 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


“ You will find beds in the suburb/’ she remarked. “ We 
are too busy for the like of you.” 

If we could make an entrance, change our clothes, and 
order a bottle of wine, I felt sure we could put things 
right; so said I, “If we cannot sleep, we may at least 
dine,” — and was for depositing my bag. 

What a terrible convulsion of nature was that which 
followed in the landlady’s face! She made a run at us 
and stamped her foot. 

“Out with you, — out of the door!” she screeched. 
“ Sortez ! sortez ! sortez par la porte ! ” 

I do not know how it happened, but next moment we 
were out in the rain and darkness, and I was cursing 
before the carriage entry like a disappointed mendicant. 
Where were the boating men of Belgium? where the 
judge and his good wines ? and where the graces of 
Origny? Black, black was the night after the firelit 
kitchen, but what was that to the blackness in our heart ? 
This was not the first time that I have been refused a 
lodging. Often and often have I planned what I should 
do if such a misadventure happened to me again. And 
nothing is easier to plan. But to put in execution, with 
the heart boiling at the indignity? Try it; try it only 
once, and tell me what you did. 

It is all very fine to talk about tramps and morality. 
Six hours of police surveillance (such as I have had) or 
one brutal rejection from an inn door change your views 
upon the subject like a course of lectures. As long as 
you keep in the upper regions, with all the world bowing 
to you as you go, social arrangements have a very hand¬ 
some air; but once get under the wheels and you wish 


LA FERE OF CURSED MEMORY 


97 


society were at the devil. I will give most respectable 
men a fortnight of such a life, and then I will offer them 
twopence for what remains of their morality. 

For my part, when I was turned out of the Stag, or the 
Hind, or whatever it was, I would have set the temple of 
Diana on fire if it had been handy. There was no crime 
complete enough to express my disapproval of human 
institutions. As for the Cigarette, I never knew a man so 
altered. “We have been taken for pedlars again,” said 
he. “Good God, what it must be to be a pedlar in 
reality!” He particularized a complaint for every joint 
in the landlady’s body. Timon was a philanthropist 
alongside of him. And then, when he was at the top 
of his maledictory bent, he would suddenly break away 
and begin whimperingly to commiserate the poor. “I 
hope to God,” he said, — and I trust the prayer was an¬ 
swered, — “ that I shall never be uncivil to a pedlar.” 
Was this the imperturbable Cigarette f This, this was he. 
Oh, change beyond report, thought, or belief! 

Meantime the heaven wept upon our heads; and the 
windows grew brighter as the night increased in darkness. 
We trudged in and out of La Fere streets; we saw shops, 
and private houses where people were copiously dining; 
we saw stables where carters’ nags had plenty of fodder 
and clean straw; we saw no end of reservists, who were 
very sorry for themselves this wet night, I doubt not, 
and yearned for their country homes; but had they not 
each man his place in La Fere barracks? And we, what 
had we ? 

There seemed to be no other inn in the whole town. 
People gave us directions, which we followed as best we 


98 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


could, generally with the effect of bringing us out again 
upon the scene of our disgrace. We were very sad people 
indeed, by the time we had gone all over La Fere; and 
the Cigarette had already made up his mind to lie under 
a poplar and sup off a loaf of bread. But right at the 
other end, the house next the town gate was full of light 
and bustle. “Bazin, aubergiste, loge a pied,” was the sign. 
“A la Croix de Malte” There were we received. 

The room was full of noisy reservists drinking and smok¬ 
ing ; and we were very glad indeed when the drums and 
bugles began to go about the streets, and one and all had 
to snatch shakoes and be off for the barracks. 

Bazin was a tall man, running to fat; soft-spoken, with 
a delicate, gentle face. We asked him to share our wine; 
but he excused himself, having pledged reservists all day 
long. This was a very different type of the workman- 
innkeeper from the bawling, disputatious fellow at Origny. 
He also loved Paris, where he had worked as a decorative 
painter in his youth. There were such opportunities for 
self-instruction there, he said. And if any one has read 
Zola’s description of the workman’s marriage party visit¬ 
ing the Louvre he would do well to have heard Bazin by 
way of antidote. He had delighted in the museums in 
his youth. “One sees there little miracles of work,” he 
said; “ that is what makes a good workman; it kindles 
a spark.” We asked him how he managed in La Fere. 
“I am married,” he said, “and I have my pretty children. 
But frankly, it is no life at all. From morning to night 
I pledge a pack of good enough fellows who know nothing.” 

It faired as the night went on, and the moon came out 
of the clouds. We sat in front of the door, talking softly 




LA FERE OF CURSED MEMORY 


99 


with Bazin. At the guardhouse opposite the guard was 
being forever turned out, as trains of field artillery kept 
clanking in out of the night or patrols of horsemen trotted 
by in their cloaks. Madame Bazin came out after 
awhile; she was tired with her day’s work, I suppose; 
and she nestled up to her husband and laid her head upon 
his breast. He had his arm about her and kept gently 
patting her on the shoulder. I think Bazin was right, 
and he was really married. Of how few people can the 
same be said! 

Little did the Bazins know how much they served us. 
We were charged for candles, for food and drink, and for 
the beds we slept in. But there was nothing in the bill 
for the husband’s pleasant talk; nor for the pretty 
spectacle of their married life. And there was yet another 
item uncharged. For these people’s politeness really set 
us up again in our own esteem. We had a thirst for 
consideration; the sense of insult was still hot in our 
spirits; and civil usage seemed to restore us to our posi¬ 
tion in the world. 

How little we pay our way in life! Although we have 
our purses continually in our hand, the better part of 
service goes still unrewarded. But I like to fancy that a 
grateful spirit gives as good as it gets. Perhaps the Bazins 
knew how much I liked them? perhaps they, also, were 
healed of some slights by the thanks that I gave them in 
my manner ? 


DOWN THE OISE 

THROUGH THE GOLDEN VALLEY 

Below La Fere the river runs through a piece of open 
pastoral country; green, opulent, loved by breeders; 
called the Golden Valley. In wide sweeps, and with a 
swift and equable gallop, the ceaseless stream of water 
visits and makes green the fields. Kine, and horses, 
and little humorous donkeys browse together in the 
meadows, and come down in troops to the riverside to 
drink. They make a strange feature in the landscape; 
above all when startled, and you see them galloping to 
and fro, with their incongruous forms and faces. It gives 
a feeling as of great unfenced pampas, and the herds of 
wandering nations. There were hills in the distance upon 
either hand ; and on one side, the river sometimes bordered 
on the wooded spurs of Coucy and St. Gobain. 

The artillery were practising at La Fere; and soon the 
cannon of heaven joined in that loud play. Two conti¬ 
nents of cloud met and exchanged salvos overhead; while 
all round the horizon we could see sunshine and clear air 
upon the hills. What with the guns and the thunder, 
the herds were all frightened in the Golden Valley. We 
could see them tossing their heads, and running to and 
fro in timorous indecision'; and when they had made up 


DOWN THE OISE 


101 


their minds, and the donkey followed the horse, and the 
cow was after the donkey, we could hear their hoofs thun¬ 
dering abroad over the meadows. It had a martial sound, 
like cavalry charges. And altogether, as far as the ears 
are concerned, we had a very rousing battle piece per¬ 
formed for our amusement. 

At last, the guns and the thunder dropped off; the 
sun shone on the wet meadows; the air was scented with 
the breath of rejoicing trees and grass; and the river 
kept unweariedly carrying us on at its best pace. There 
was a manufacturing district about Chauny; and after 
that the banks grew so high that they hid the adjacent 
country, and we could see nothing but clay sides, and one 
willow after another. Only here and there we passed by 
a village or a ferry, and some wondering child upon the 
bank would stare after us until we turned the corner. I 
dare say we continued to paddle in that child’s dreams for 
many a night after. 

Sun and shower alternated like day and night, making 
the hours longer by their variety. When the showers 
were heavy I could feel each drop striking through my 
jersey to my warm skin; and the accumulation of small 
shocks put me nearly beside myself. I decided I should 
buy a mackintosh at Noyon. It is nothing to get wet; 
but the misery of these individual pricks of cold all over 
my body at the same instant of time made me flail the 
water with my paddle like a madman. The Cigarette 
was greatly amused by these ebullitions. It gave him 
something else to look at besides clay banks and willows. 

All the time the river stole away like a thief in straight 
places, or swung round corners with an eddy; the willows 


102 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


nodded and were undermined all day long; the clay 
banks tumbled in; the Oise, which had been so many 
centuries making the Golden Valley, seemed to have 
changed its fancy and be bent upon undoing its perform¬ 
ance. What a number of things a river does by simply 
following Gravity in the innocence of its heart! 


NOYON CATHEDRAL 

No yon stands about a mile from the river, in a little 
plain surrounded by wooded hills, and entirely covers an 
eminence with its tile roofs, surmounted by a long, straight- 
backed cathedral with two stiff towers. As we got into 
the town, the tile roofs seemed to tumble uphill one upon 
another, in the oddest disorder; but for all their scram¬ 
bling they did not attain above the knees of the cathedral, 
which stood, upright and solemn, over all. As the streets 
drew near to this presiding genius, through the market 
place under the Hotel de Ville, they grew emptier and more 
composed. Blank walls and shuttered windows were 
turned to the great edifice, and grass grew on the white 
causeway. “Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the 
place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” The Hotel 
du Nord, nevertheless, lights its secular tapers within a 
stone-cast of the church; and we had the superb east end 
before our eyes all morning from the window of our bed¬ 
room. I have seldom looked on the east end of a church 
with more complete sympathy. As it flanges out in three 
wide terraces, and settles down broadly on the earth, it 
looks like the poop of some great old battleship. Hollow- 
backed buttresses carry vases, which figure for the stern 
lanterns. There is a roll in the ground, and the towers 
just appear above the pitch of the roof, as though the good 
ship were bowing lazily over an Atlantic swell. At any 
103 



Noyon 










































































NOYON CATHEDRAL 


105 


moment it might be a hundred feet away from you, climb¬ 
ing the next billow. At any moment a window might 
open, and some old admiral thrust forth a cocked hat and 
proceed to take an observation. The old admirals sail 
the sea no longer; the old ships of battle are all broken 
up, and live only in pictures; but this, that was a church 
before ever they were thought upon, is still a church, and 
makes as brave an appearance by the Oise. The cathe¬ 
dral and the river are probably the two oldest things for 
miles around; and certainly they have both a grand old 
age. 

The Sacristan took us to the top of one of the towers, 
and showed us the five bells hanging in their loft. From 
above the town was a tessellated pavement of roofs and 
gardens; the old line of rampart was plainly traceable; 
and the Sacristan pointed out to us, far across the plain, 
in a bit of gleaming sky between two clouds, the towers of 
Chateau Coucy. 

I find I never weary of great churches. It is my 
favorite kind of mountain scenery. Mankind was never 
so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral: a thing 
as single and specious as a statue to the first glance, and 
yet, on examination, as lively and interesting as a forest 
in detail. The height of spires cannot be taken by 
trigonometry; they measure absurdly short, but how 
tall they are to the admiring eye! And where we have 
so many elegant proportions, growing one out of the other, 
and all together into one, it seems as if proportion tran¬ 
scended itself and became something different and more 
imposing. I could never fathom how a man dares to lift 
up his voice to preach in a cathedral. What is he to 


106 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


say that will not be an anticlimax? For though I have 
heard a considerable variety of sermons, I never yet heard 
one that was so expressive as a cathedral. ’Tis the best 
preacher itself, and preaches day and night; not only 
telling you of man’s art and aspirations in the past, but 
convicting your own soul of ardent sympathies; or rather, 
like all good preachers, it sets you preaching to yourself, 
— and every man is his own doctor of divinity in the last 
resort. 

As I sat outside of the hotel in the course of the after¬ 
noon, the sweet, groaning thunder of the organ floated 
out of the church like a summons. I was not averse, 
liking the theater so well, to sit out an act or two of the 
play, but I could never rightly make out the nature of 
the service I beheld. Four or five priests and as many 
choristers were singing Miserere before the high altar 
when I went in. There was no congregation but a few 
old women on chairs and old men kneeling on the pave¬ 
ment. After awhile a long train of young girls, walking 
two and two, each with a lighted taper in her hand, and 
all dressed in black with a white veil, came from behind 
the altar and began to descend the nave; the four first 
carrying a Virgin and Child upon a table. The priests 
and choristers arose from their knees and followed after, 
singing “Ave Maria” as they went. In this order they 
made the circuit of the cathedral, passing twice before 
me where I leaned against a pillar. The priest who seemed 
of most consequence was a strange-down-looking old man. 
He kept mumbling prayers with his lips ; s but, as he looked 
upon me darkling, it did not seem as if prayer were upper¬ 
most in his heart. Two others, who bore the burden of 


NOYON CATHEDRAL 


107 


the chant, were stout, brutal, military-looking men of 
forty, with bold, overfed eyes ; they sang with some lusti¬ 
ness, and trolled forth “ Ave Maria” like a garrison catch. 
The little girls were timid and grave. As they footed 
slowly up the aisle, each one took a moment’s glance at 
the Englishman; and the big nun who played marshal 
fairly stared him out of countenance. As for the choristers 
from first to last they misbehaved as only boys can mis¬ 
behave, and cruelly marred the performance with their 
antics. 

I understood a great deal of the spirit of what went on. 
Indeed, it would be difficult not to understand the Miserere, 
which I take to be the composition of an atheist. If it 
ever be a good thing to take such despondency to heart, 
the Miserere is the right music and a cathedral a fit scene. 
So far I am at one with the Catholics, — an odd name 
for them, after all! But why, in God’s name, these 
holiday choristers? why these priests who steal wander¬ 
ing looks about the congregation while they feign to be 
at prayer? why this fat nun, who rudely arranges her 
procession and shakes delinquent virgins by the elbow? 
why this spitting, and snuffing, and forgetting of keys, 
and the thousand and one little misadventures that dis¬ 
turb a frame of mind, laboriously edified with chants 
and organings ? In any playhouse reverend fathers may 
see what can be done with a little art, and how, to move 
high sentiments, it is necessary to drill the supernumeraries 
and have every stool in its proper place. 

One other circumstance distressed me. I could bear 
a Miserere myself, having had a good deal of open-air 
exercise of late; but I wished the old people somewhere 


108 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


else. It was neither the right sort of music nor the right 
sort of divinity for men and women who have come 
through most accidents by this time, and probably have 
an opinion of their own upon the tragic element in life. 
A person up in years can generally do his own Miserere 
for himself; although I notice that such an one often pre¬ 
fers Jubilate Deo for his ordinary singing. On the whole, 
the most religious exercise for the aged is probably to recall 
their own experience; so many friends dead, so many 
hopes disappointed, so many slips and stumbles, and withal 
so many bright days and smiling providences; there is 
surely the matter of a very eloquent sermon in all this. 

On the whole I was greatly solemnized. In the little 
pictorial map of our whole Inland Voyage, which my fancy 
still preserves, and sometimes unrolls for the amusement 
of odd moments, Noyon cathedral figures on a most pre¬ 
posterous scale, and must be nearly as large as the depart¬ 
ment. I can still see the faces of the priests as if they 
were at my elbow, and hear Ave Maria, ora pro nobis sound¬ 
ing through the church. All Noyon is blotted out for 
me by these superior memories; and I do not care to say 
more about the place. It was but a stack of brown roofs 
at the best, where I believe people live very reputably, 
in a quiet way; but the shadow of the church falls upon 
it when the sun is low, and the five bells are heard in all 
quarters, telling that the organ has begun. If ever I join 
the church of Rome I shall stipulate to be Bishop of Noyon 
on the Oise. 


DOWN THE OISE 

TO COMPlfiGNE 

The most patient people grow weary at last with being 
continually wetted with rain; except, of course, in the 
Scotch Highlands, where there are not enough fine inter¬ 
vals to point the difference. That was like to be our case 
the day we left Noyon. I remember nothing of the voy¬ 
age ; it was nothing but clay banks, and willows, and 
rain; incessant, pitiless, beating rain; until we stopped 
to lunch at a little inn at Pimprez, where the canal ran 
very near the river. We were so sadly drenched that the 
landlady lit a few sticks in the chimney for our comfort; 
there we sat in a steam of vapor lamenting our concerns. 
The husband donned a game bag and strode out to shoot; 
the wife sat in a far corner watching us. I think we were 
worth looking at. We grumbled over the misfortune of 
La Fere; we forecast other La Feres in the future, — 
although things went better with the Cigarette for spokes¬ 
man ; he had more aplomb altogether than I; and a dull, 
positive way of approaching a landlady that carried off 
the india-rubber bags. Talking of La Fere put us talking 
of the reservists. 

“Reservery,” said he, “seems a pretty mean way to 
spend one’s autumn holiday.” 

“ About as mean,” returned I, dejectedly, “ as canoeing.” 

109 


<~T^] IT? Junction*^>f^e 
1 Compie^rte tfrw] 


LOWER _ 



$Por\tcise 


Kilometres 

o 5 to is 10 

1.UXL.I1 I I I I i. ■ i I.. J 


CYod l&oke 






DOWN THE OISE 


111 


“These gentlemen travel for their pleasure?” asked 
the landlady, with unconscious irony. 

It was too much. The scales fell from our eyes. An¬ 
other wet day, it was determined, and we put the boats 
into the train. 

The weather took the hint. That was our last wetting. 
The afternoon faired up; grand clouds still voyaged in 
the sky, but now singly, and with a depth of blue around 
their path; and a sunset, in the daintiest rose and gold, 
inaugurated a thick night of stars and a month of un¬ 
broken weather. At the same time, the river began to 
give us a better outlook into the country. The banks 
were not so high, the willows disappeared from along the 
margin, and pleasant hills stood all along its course and 
marked their profile on the sky. 

In a little while the canal, coming to its last lock, began 
to discharge its water houses on the Oise; so that we had 
no lack of company to fear. Here were all our old friends; 
the Deo Gratias of Conde and the Four Sons of Aymon 
journeyed cheerily down the stream along with us; we 
exchanged water-side pleasantries with the steersman 
perched among the lumber, or the driver hoarse with 
bawling to his horses; and the children came and looked 
over the side as we paddled by. We had never known all 
this while how much we missed them; but it gave us a 
fillip to see the smoke from their chimneys. 

A little below this junction we made another meeting 
of yet more account. For there we were joined by the 
Aisne, already a far-traveled river and fresh out of 
Champagne. Here ended the adolescence of the Oise; 
this was his marriage day; thenceforward he had a stately, 


112 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


brimming march, conscious of his own dignity and sundry 
dams. He became a tranquil feature in the scene. The 
trees and towns saw themselves in him, as in a mirror. 
He carried the canoes lightly on his broad breast; there 
was no need to work hard against an eddy, but idleness 
became the order of the day, and mere straightforward 
dipping of the paddle, now on this side, now on that, 
without intelligence or effort. Truly we were coming 
into halcyon weather upon all accounts, and were floating 
towards the sea like gentlemen. 

We made Compiegne as the sun was going down: a 
fine profile of a town above the river. Over the bridge a 
regiment was parading to the drum. People loitered on 
the quay, some fishing, some looking idly at the stream. 
And as the two boats shot in along the water, we could 
see them pointing them out and speaking one to another. 
We landed at a floating lavatory, where the washerwomen 
were still beating the clothes. 


AT COMPIEGNE 


We put up at a big, bustling hotel in Compiegne, where 
nobody observed our presence. 

Reservery and general militarismus (as the Germans 
call it) were rampant. A camp of conical white tents with¬ 
out the town looked like a leaf out of a picture Bible; 
sword belts decorated the walls of the cafes, and the streets 
kept sounding all day long with military music. It was 
not possible to be an Englishman and avoid a feeling of 
elation; for the men who followed the drums were small 
and walked shabbily. Each man inclined at his own angle, 
and jolted to his own convenience as he went. There 
was nothing of the superb gait with which a regiment of 
tall Highlanders moves, behind its music, solemn and 
inevitable, like a natural phenomenon. Who, that has 
seen it, can forget the drum major pacing in front, the 
drummers’ tiger skins, the pipers’ swinging plaids, the 
strange, elastic rhythm of the whole regiment footing it in 
time, and the bang of the drum when the brasses cease, 
and the shrill pipes taking up the martial story in their 
place ? 

A girl at school in France began to describe one of our 
regiments on parade to her French schoolmates, and as 
she went on, she told me the recollection grew so vivid, 
she became so proud to be the countrywoman of such 
soldiers, and so sorry to be in another country, that her 
113 


114 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


voice failed her and she burst into tears. I have never 
forgotten that girl, and I think she very nearly deserves a 
statue. To call her a young lady, with all its niminy as¬ 
sociations, would be to offer her an insult. She may rest 
assured of one thing, although she never should marry 
a heroic general, never see any great or immediate result 
of her life, she will not have lived in vain for her native 
land. 

But though French soldiers show to ill-advantage on 
parade, on the march they are gay, alert, and willing, like 
a troop of fox hunters. I remember once seeing a com¬ 
pany pass through the forest of Fontainebleau, on the 
Chailly road, between the Bas Breau and the Reine 
Blanche. One fellow walked a little before the rest, and 
sang a loud, audacious marching song. The rest bestirred 
their feet, and even swung their muskets in time. A 
young officer on horseback had hard ado to keep his coun¬ 
tenance at the words. You never saw anything so cheer¬ 
ful and spontaneous as their gait; schoolboys do not look 
more eagerly at hare and hounds; and you would have 
thought it impossible to tire such willing marchers. 

My great delight in Compiegne was the town hall. I 
doted upon the town hall. It is a monument of Gothic 
insecurity, all turreted, and gargoyled, and slashed, and 
bedizened with half a score of architectural fancies. Some 
of the niches are gilt and painted; and in a great square 
panel in the center, in black relief on a gilt ground, Louis 
XII rides upon a pacing horse, with hand on hip, and 
head thrown back. There is royal arrogance in every 
line of him; the stirruped foot projects insolently from 
the frame; the eye is hard and proud; the very horse 


AT COMPIEGNE 


115 


seems to be treading with gratification over prostrate serfs, 
and to have the breath of the trumpet in his nostrils. So 
rides forever, on the front of the town hall, the good King 
Louis XII, the father of his people. 

Over the king’s head, in the tall center turret, appears 
the dial of a clock; and high above that, three little me¬ 
chanical figures, each one with a hammer in his hand, whose 
business it is to chime out the hours, and halves, and 
quarters for the burgesses of Compiegne. The center 
figure has a gilt breastplate; the two others wear gilt 
trunk hose; and they all three have elegant, flapping 
hats like cavaliers. As the quarter approaches they turn 
their heads and look knowingly one to the other; and 
then, kling go the three hammers on three little bells be¬ 
low. The hour follows, deep and sonorous, from the in¬ 
terior of the tower; and the gilded gentlemen rest from 
their labors with contentment. 

I had a great deal of healthy pleasure from their 
manoeuvres, and took good care to miss as few perform¬ 
ances as possible; and I found that even the Cigarette, 
while he pretended to despise my enthusiasm, was more 
or less a devotee himself. There is something highly 
absurd in the exposition of such toys to the outrages of 
winter on a housetop. They would be more in keeping 
in a glass case before a Niirnberg clock. Above all, at 
night, when the children are abed, and even grown people 
are snoring under quilts, does it not seem impertinent to 
leave these gingerbread figures winking and tinkling to 
the stars and the rolling moon ? The gargoyles may fitly 
enough twist their ape-like heads; fitly enough may the 
potentate bestride his charger, like a centurion in an old 


116 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


German print of the Via Dolorosa; but the toys should 
be put away in a box among some cotton, until the sun 
rises, and the children are abroad again to be amused. 

In Compiegne post office a great packet of letters 
awaited us; and the authorities were, for this occasion 
only, so polite as to hand them over upon application. 

In some way, our journey may be said to end with this 
letter bag at Compiegne. The spell was broken. We 
had partly come home from that moment. 

No one should have any correspondence on a journey; 
it is bad enough to have to write; but the receipt of letters 
is the death of all holiday feeling. 

“Out of my country and myself I go.” I wish to take 
a dive among new conditions for awhile, as into another 
element. I have nothing to do with my friends or my 
affections for the time; when I came away, I left my 
heart at home in a desk, or sent it forward with port¬ 
manteau to await me at my destination. After my 
journey is over, I shall not fail to read your admirable 
letters with the attention they deserve. But I have paid 
all this money, look you, and paddled all these strokes, 
for no other purpose than to be abroad ; and yet you keep 
me at home with your perpetual communications. You 
tug the string, and I feel that I am a tethered bird. You 
pursue me all over Europe with the little vexations that 
I came away to avoid. There is no discharge in the war 
of life, I am well aware; but shall there not be so much 
as a week’s furlough ? 

We were up by six, the day we were to leave. They 
had taken so little note of us that I hardly thought they 
would have condescended on a bill. But they did, with 


AT COMPIElGNE 


117 


some smart particulars, too; and we paid in a civilized 
manner to an uninterested clerk, and went out of that 
hotel, with the india-rubber bags,, unremarked. No one 
cared to know about us. It is not possible to rise before 
a village; but Compiegne was so grown a town that it 
took its ease in the morning; and we were up and away 
while it was still in dressing gown and slippers. The 
streets were left to people washing doorsteps ; nobody was 
in full dress but the cavaliers upon the town hall; they 
were all washed with dew, spruce in their gilding, and full 
of intelligence and a sense of professional responsibility. 
Kling went they on the bells for the half past six, as we 
went by. I took it kind of them to make me this parting 
compliment; they never were in better form, not even 
at noon upon a Sunday. 

There was no one to see us off but the early washer¬ 
women, — early and late, — who were already beating 
the linen in their floating lavatory on the river. They 
were very merry and matutinal in their ways; plunged 
their arms boldly in, and seemed not to feel the shock. It 
would be dispiriting to me, this early beginning and first 
cold dabble of a most dispiriting day’s work. But I be¬ 
lieve they would have been as unwilling to change days 
with us as we could be to change with them. They 
crowded to the door to watch us paddle away into the 
thin sunny mists upon the river; and shouted heartily 
after us till we were through the bridge. 


CHANGED TIMES 

There is a sense in which those mists never rose from 
off our journey; and from that time forth they lie very 
densely in my notebook. As long as the Oise was a 
small, rural river it took us near by people’s doors, and 
we could hold a conversation with natives in the riparian 
fields. But now that it had grown so wide, the life along 
shore passed us by at a distance. It was the same differ¬ 
ence as between a great public highway and a country by¬ 
path that wanders in and out of cottage gardens. We 
now lay in towns, where nobody troubled us with ques¬ 
tions ; we had floated into civilized life, where people pass 
without salutation. In sparsely inhabited places we make 
all we can of each encounter; but when it comes to a 
city, we keep to ourselves, and never speak unless we have 
trodden on a man’s toes. In these waters we were no 
longer strange birds, and nobody supposed we had traveled 
farther than from the last town. I remember, when we 
came into L’lsle Adam, for instance, how we met dozens 
of pleasure boats outing it for the afternoon, and there 
was nothing to distinguish the true voyager from the 
amateur, except, perhaps, the filthy condition of my sail. 
The company in one boat actually thought they recog¬ 
nized me for a neighbor. Was there ever anything more 
wounding? All the romance had come down to that. 

118 


CHANGED TIMES 


119 


Now, on the upper Oise, where nothing sailed, as a general 
thing, but fish, a pair of canoeists could not be thus 
vulgarly explained away; we were strange and picturesque 
intruders; and out of people’s wonder sprang a sort of 
light and passing intimacy all along our route. There is 
nothing but tit for tat in this world, though sometimes it 
be a little difficult to trace: for the scores are older than 
we ourselves, and there has never yet been a settling- 
day since things were. You get entertainment pretty 
much in proportion as you give. As long as we were a 
sort of odd wanderers, to be stared at and followed like 
a quack doctor or a caravan, we had no want of amuse¬ 
ment in return; but as soon as we sank into commonplace 
ourselves, all whom we met were similarly disenchanted. 
And here is one reason of a dozen why the world is dull to 
dull persons. 

In our earlier adventures there was generally something 
to do, and that quickened us. Even the showers of rain 
had a revivifying effect, and shook up the brain from tor¬ 
por. But now, when the river no longer ran in a proper 
sense, only glided seaward with an even, outright, but 
imperceptible speed, and when the sky smiled upon us 
day after day without variety, we began to slip into that 
golden doze of the mind which follows upon much exer¬ 
cise in the open air. I have stupefied myself in this way 
more than once: indeed, I dearly love the feeling; but 
I never had it to the same degree as when paddling down 
the Oise. It was the apotheosis of stupidity. 

We ceased reading entirely. Sometimes, when I found 
a new paper, I took a particular pleasure in reading a 
single number of the current novel; but I never could 


120 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


bear more than three installments; and even the second 
was a disappointment. As soon as the tale became in 
any way perspicuous, it lost all merit in my eyes; only 
a single scene, or, as is the way with these feuilletons, 
half a scene, without antecedent or consequence, like a 
piece of a dream, had the knack of fixing my interest. 
The less I saw of the novel the better I liked it: a preg¬ 
nant reflection. But for the most part, as I said, we 
neither of us read anything in the world, and employed 
the very little while we were awake between bed and 
dinner in poring upon maps. I have always been fond 
of maps, and can voyage in an atlas with the greatest 
enjoyment. The names of places are singularly inviting; 
the contour of coasts and rivers is enthralling to the 
eye; and to hit in a map upon some place you have heard 
of before makes history a new possession. But we 
thumbed our charts, on those evenings, with the blankest 
unconcern. We cared not a fraction for this place or 
that. We stared at the sheet as children listen to their 
rattle, and read the names of towns or villages to forget 
them again at once. We had no romance in the matter; 
there was nobody so fancy-free. If you had taken the 
maps away while we were studying them most intently 
it is a fair bet whether we might not have continued to 
study the table with the same delight. 

About one thing we were mightily taken up, and that 
was eating. I think I made a god of my belly. I re¬ 
member dwelling in imagination upon this or that dish 
till my mouth watered; and long before we got in for 
the night my appetite was a clamant, instant annoyance. 
Sometimes we paddled alongside for awhile and whetted 


CHANGED TIMES 


121 


each other with gastronomical fancies as we went. Cake 
and sherry, a homely refection, but not within reach 
upon the Oise, trotted through my head for many a mile ; 
and once, as we were approaching Verberie, the Cigarette 
brought my heart into my mouth by the suggestion of 
oyster patties and Sauterne. 

I suppose none of us recognize the great part that is 
played in life by eating and drinking. The appetite is so 
imperious that we can stomach the least interesting vi¬ 
ands, and pass off a dinner hour thankfully enough on 
bread and water; just as there are men who must read 
something, if it were only Bradshaw’s Guide. But there 
is a romance about the matter, after all. Probably the 
table has more devotees than love; and I am sure that 
food is much more generally entertaining than scenery. 
Do you give in, as Walt Whitman would say, that you 
are any the less immortal for that ? The true materialism 
is to be ashamed of what we are. To detect the flavor 
of an olive is no less a piece of human perfection than to 
find beauty in the colors of the sunset. 

Canoeing was easy work. To dip the paddle at the 
proper inclination, now right, now left; to keep the head 
down stream; to empty the little pool that gathered in 
the lap of the sfpron; to screw up the eyes against the 
glittering sparkles of sun upon the water; or now and 
again to pass below the whistling towrope of the Deo 
Gratias of Conde, or Four Sons of Aymon, — there was 
not much art in that; certain silly muscles managed it 
between sleep and waking; and meanwhile the brain 
had a whole holiday, and went to sleep. We took in at 
a glance the larger features of the scene, and beheld, with 


122 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


half an eye, bloused fishers and dabbling washerwomen 
on the bank. Now and again we might be half wakened 
by some church spire, by a leaping fish, or by a trail of 
river grass that clung about the paddle and had to be 
plucked off and thrown away. But these luminous in¬ 
tervals were only partially luminous. A little more of 
us was called into action, but never the whole. The cen¬ 
tral bureau of nerves, what in some moods we call Our¬ 
selves, enjoyed its holiday without disturbance, like a 
Government Office. The great wheels of intelligence 
turned idly in the head, like flywheels, grinding no grist. 
I have gone on for half an hour at a time, counting my 
strokes and forgetting the hundreds. I flatter myself 
the beasts that perish could not underbid that, as a low 
form of consciousness. And what a pleasure it was! 
What a hearty, tolerant temper did it bring about! 
There is nothing captious about a man who has attained 
to this, the one possible apotheosis in life, the Apotheosis 
of Stupidity; and he begins to feel dignified and lon¬ 
gevous like a tree. 

There was one odd piece of practical metaphysics which 
accompanied what I may call the depth, if I must not 
call it the intensity, of my abstraction. What philoso¬ 
phers call me and not me, ego and non ego, preoccupied me 
whether I would or no. There was less me and more not 
me than I was accustomed to expect. I looked on upon 
somebody else, who managed the paddling; I was aware 
of somebody else’s feet against the stretcher; my own 
body seemed to have no more intimate relation to me 
than the canoe, or the river, or the river banks. Nor this 
alone: something inside my mind, a part of my brain, a 


CHANGED TIMES 


123 


province of my proper being, had thrown off allegiance 
and set up for itself, or perhaps for the somebody else who 
did the paddling. I had dwindled into quite a little 
thing in a corner of myself. I was isolated in my own 
skull. Thoughts presented themselves unbidden; they 
were not my thoughts, they were plainly some one else’s; 
and I considered them like a part of the landscape. I 
take it, in short, that I was about as near Nirvana as would 
be convenient in practical life; and, if this be so, I make 
the Buddhists my sincere compliments; ’tis an agreeable 
state, not very consistent with mental brilliancy, not 
exactly profitable in a money point of view, but very calm, 
golden, and incurious, and one that sets a man superior 
to alarms. It may be best figured by supposing yourself 
to get dead drunk, and yet keep sober to enjoy it. I have 
a notion that open-air laborers must spend a large por¬ 
tion of their days in this ecstatic stupor, which explains 
their high composure and endurance. A pity to go to 
the expense of laudanum when here is a better paradise 
for nothing! 

This frame of mind was the great exploit of our voyage, 
take it all in all. It was the farthest piece of travel ac¬ 
complished. Indeed, it lies so far from beaten paths of 
language that I despair of getting the reader into sym¬ 
pathy with the smiling, complacent idiocy of my condi¬ 
tion; when ideas came and went like motes in a sun¬ 
beam ; when trees and church spires along the bank surged 
up from time to time into my notice, like solid objects 
through a rolling cloudland; when the rhythmical swish 
of boat and paddle in the water became a cradle song to 
lull my thoughts asleep; when a piece of mud on the 


124 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


deck was sometimes an intolerable eyesore, and sometimes 
quite a companion for me, and the object of pleased con¬ 
sideration ; and all the time, with the river running and 
the shores changing upon either hand, I kept counting my 
strokes and forgetting the hundreds, the happiest animal 
in France. 


DOWN THE OISE 


CHURCH INTERIORS 

We made our first stage below Compiegne to Pont 
Sainte-Maxence. I was abroad a little after six the next 
morning. The air was biting and smelt of frost. In an 
open place a score of women wrangled together over the 
day’s market; and the noise of their negotiation sounded 
thin and querulous, like that of sparrows on a winter’s 
morning. The rare passengers blew into their hands, 
and shuffled in their wooden shoes to set the blood agog. 
The streets were full of icy shadow, although the chim¬ 
neys were smoking overhead in golden sunshine. If you 
wake early enough at this season of the year, you may 
get up in December to break your fast in June. 

I found my way to the church, for there is always some¬ 
thing to see about a church, whether living worshippers 
or dead men’s tombs; you find there the deadliest earnest, 
and the hollowest deceit; and even where it is not a piece 
of history, it will be certain to leak out some contemporary 
gossip. It was scarcely so cold in the church as it was 
without, but it looked colder. The white nave was pos¬ 
itively arctic to the eye; and the tawdriness of a conti¬ 
nental altar looked more forlorn than usual in the solitude 
and the bleak air. Two priests sat in the chancel read¬ 
ing and waiting penitents; and out in the nave one very 
125 





Church at Pont Sainte-Maxence 
























































DOWN THE OISE 


127 


old woman was engaged in her devotions. It was a won¬ 
der how she was able to pass her beads when healthy 
young people were breathing in their palms and slapping 
their chest; but though this concerned me, I was yet 
more dispirited by the nature of her exercises. She went 
from chair to chair, from altar to altar, circumnavigating 
the church. To each shrine she dedicated an equal 
number of beads and an equal length of time. Like a 
prudent capitalist with a somewhat cynical view of the 
commercial prospect, she desired to place her supplica¬ 
tions in a great variety of heavenly securities. She would 
risk nothing on the credit of any single intercessor. Out 
of the whole company of saints and angels, not one but 
was to suppose himself her champion elect against the 
Great Assizes! I could only think of it as a dull, trans¬ 
parent jugglery, based upon unconscious unbelief. 

She was as dead an old woman as ever I saw; no more 
than bone and parchment, curiously put together. Her 
eyes, with which she interrogated mine, were vacant of 
sense. It depends on what you call seeing, whether you 
might not call her blind. Perhaps she had known love: 
perhaps borne children, suckled them, and given them 
pet names. But now that was all gone by, and had left 
her neither happier nor wiser; and the best she could do 
with her mornings was to come up here into the cold 
church and juggle for a slice of heaven. It was not with¬ 
out a gulp that I escaped into the streets and the keen 
morning air. Morning? why, how tired of it she would 
be before night! and if she did not sleep, how then ? It 
is fortunate that not many of us are brought up publicly 
to justify pur lives at the bar of threescore years and 


128 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


ten; fortunate that such a number are knocked oppor¬ 
tunely on the head in what they call the flower of their 
years, and go away to suffer for their follies in private 
somewhere else. Otherwise, between sick children and 
discontented old folk, we might be put out of all conceit 
of life. 

I had need of all my cerebral hygiene during that day’s 
paddle : the old devotee stuck in my throat sorely. But 
I was soon in the seventh heaven of stupidity; and knew 
nothing but that somebody was paddling a canoe, while 
I was counting his strokes and forgetting the hundreds. 
I used sometimes to be afraid I should remember the 
hundreds; which would have made a toil of a pleasure; 
but the terror was chimerical, they went out of my mind 
by enchantment, and I knew no more than the man in 
the moon about my only occupation. 

At Creil, where we stopped to lunch, we left the canoes 
in another floating lavatory, which, as it was high noon, 
was packed with washerwomen, red-handed and loud- 
voiced; and they and their broad jokes are about all I 
remember of the place. I could look up my history 
books, if you were very anxious, and tell you a date or 
two; for it figured rather largely in the English wars. 
But I prefer to mention a girls’ boarding school, which 
had an interest for us because it was a girls’ boarding 
school, and because we imagined we had rather an in¬ 
terest for it. At least, there were the girls about the 
garden; and here were we on the river; and there was 
more than one handkerchief waved as we went by. It 
caused quite a stir in my heart; and yet how we should 
have wearied and despised each other, these girls and I, 


DOWN THE OISE 


129 


if we had been introduced at a croquet party! But this 
is a fashion I love: to kiss the hand or wave a handker¬ 
chief to people I shall never see again, to play with pos¬ 
sibility, and knock in a peg for fancy to hang upon. It 
gives the traveler a jog, reminds him that he is not a 
traveler everywhere, and that his journey is no more 
than a siesta by the way on the real march of life. 

The church at Creil was a nondescript place in the 
inside, splashed with gaudy lights from the windows, 
and picked out with medallions of the Dolorous Way. 
But there was one oddity, in the way of an ex voto, which 
pleased me hugely: a faithful model of a canal boat, 
swung from the vault, with a written aspiration that God 
should conduct the Saint Nicholas of Creil to a good haven. 
The thing was neatly executed, and would have made the 
delight of a party of boys on the waterside. But what 
tickled me was the gravity of the peril to be conjured. 
You might hang up the model of a sea-going ship, and 
welcome : one that is to plough a furrow round the world, 
and visit the tropic or the frosty poles, runs dangers that 
are well worth a candle and a mass. But the Saint 
Nicholas of Creil, which was to be tugged for some ten 
years by patient draught horses, in a weedy canal, with 
the poplars chattering overhead, and the skipper whistling 
at the tiller; which was to do all its errands in green in¬ 
land places, and never got out of sight of a village belfry 
in all its cruising; why, you would have thought if any¬ 
thing could be done without the intervention of Provi¬ 
dence, it would be that! But perhaps the skipper was a 
humorist: or perhaps a prophet, reminding people of 
the seriousness of life by this preposterous token. 


130 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


At Creil, as at Noyon, St. Joseph seemed a favorite 
saint on the score of punctuality. Day and hour can be 
specified; and grateful people do not fail to specify them 
on a votive tablet, when prayers have been punctually 
and neatly answered. Whenever time is a consideration, 
St. Joseph is the proper intermediary. I took a sort of 
pleasure in observing the vogue he had in France, for the 
good man plays a very small part in my religion at home. 
Yet I could not help fearing that, where the saint is so 
much commended for exactitude, he will be expected to 
be very grateful for his tablet. 

This is foolishness to us Protestants; and not of great 
importance anyway. Whether people’s gratitude for the 
good gifts that come to them be wisely conceived or duti¬ 
fully expressed is a secondary matter, after all, so long as 
they feel gratitude. The true ignorance is when a man 
does not know that he has received a good gift, or begins 
to imagine that he has got it for himself. The self-made 
man is the funniest windbag after all! There is a marked 
difference between decreeing light in chaos, and lighting 
the gas in a metropolitan back parlor with a box of 
patent matches; and, do what we will, there is always 
something made to our hand, if it were only our fingers. 

But there was something worse than foolishness pla¬ 
carded in Creil Church. The Association of the Living 
Rosary (of which I had never previously heard) is respon¬ 
sible for that. This association was founded, according 
to the printed advertisement, by a brief of Pope Gregory 
Sixteenth, on the 17th of January, 1832: according to 
a colored bas-relief, it seems to have been founded, 
some time or other, by the Virgin giving one rosary to 


DOWN THE OISE 


131 


St. Dominic, and the Infant Saviour giving another to 
St. Catherine of Sienna. Pope Gregory is not so imposing, 
but he is nearer hand. I could not distinctly make out 
whether the association was entirely devotional, or had 
an eye to good works ; at least it is highly organized : the 
names of fourteen matrons and misses were filled in for 
each week of the month as associates, with one other, gen¬ 
erally a married woman, at the top for Zelatrice, the 
choragus of the band. Indulgences, plenary and partial, 
follow on the performance of the duties of the association. 
“The partial indulgences are attached to the recitation 
of the rosary.” On “the recitation of the required di- 
zaine,” a partial indulgence promptly follows. When 
people serve the kingdom of Heaven with a pass book 
in their hands, I should always be afraid lest they should 
carry the same commercial spirit into their dealings with 
their fellow-men, which would make a sad and sordid 
business of this life. 

There is one more article, however, of happier import. 
“All these indulgences,” it appeared, “are applicable to 
souls in purgatory.” For God’s sake, ye ladies of Creil, 
apply them all to the souls in purgatory without delay! 
Burns would take no hire for his last songs, preferring to 
serve his country out of unmixed love. Suppose you 
were to imitate the excise man, Mesdames, and even if 
the souls in purgatory were not greatly bettered, some 
souls in Creil upon the Oise would find themselves none 
the worse either here or hereafter. 

I cannot help wondering, as I transcribe these notes, 
whether a Protestant born and bred is in a fit state to 
understand these signs, and do them what justice they 


132 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


deserve; and I cannot help answering that he is not. 
They cannot look so merely ugly and mean to the faithful 
as they do to me. I see that as clearly as a propo¬ 
sition in Euclid. For these believers are neither weak 
nor wicked. They can put up their tablet commending 
St. Joseph for his despatch as if he were still a village car¬ 
penter; they can “recite the required dizaine,” and meta¬ 
phorically pocket the indulgences as if they had done a 
job for heaven; and then they can go out and look down 
unabashed upon this wonderful river flowing by, and 
up without confusion at the pin-point stars, which are 
themselves great worlds full of flowing rivers greater than 
the Oise. I see it as plainly, I say, as a proposition in 
Euclid, that my Protestant mind has missed the point, 
and that there goes with these deformities some higher 
and more religious spirit than I dream. 

I wonder if other people would make the same allow¬ 
ances for me? Like the ladies of Creil, having recited 
my rosary of toleration, I look for my indulgence on the 
spot. 


PRECY AND THE MARIONETTES 

We made Precy about sundown. The plain is rich 
with tufts of poplar. In a wide, luminous curve the 
Oise lay under the hillside. A faint mist began to rise 
and confound the different distances together. There 
was not a sound audible but that of the sheep bells in 
some meadows by the river, and the creaking of a cart 
down the long road that descends the hill. The villas in 
their gardens, the shops along the street, all seemed to 
have been deserted the day before; and I felt inclined to 
walk discreetly as one feels in a silent forest. All of a 
sudden we came round a corner, and there, in a little 
green round the church, was a bevy of girls in Parisian 
costumes playing croquet. Their laughter and the hollow 
sound of ball and mallet made a cheery stir in the neigh¬ 
borhood ; and the look of these slim figures, all corseted 
and ribboned, produced an answerable disturbance in 
our hearts. We were within sniff of Paris, it seemed. 
And here were females of our own species playing croquet, 
just as if Precy had been a place in real life instead of a 
stage in the fairyland of travel. For, to be frank, the 
peasant woman is scarcely to be counted as a woman at 
all, and after having passed by such a succession of 
people in petticoats digging, and hoeing, and making din¬ 
ner, this company of coquettes under arms made quite 
133 



Between Creil and Precy 























PRECY AND THE MARIONETTES 135 


a surprising feature in the landscape, and convinced us at 
once of being fallible males. 

The inn at Precy is the worst inn in France. Not even 
in Scotland have I found worse fare. It was kept by a 
brother and sister, neither of whom was out of their teens. 
The sister, so to speak, prepared a meal for us; and the 
brother, who had been tippling, came in and brought with 
him a tipsy butcher, to entertain us as we ate. We found 
pieces of loo-warm pork among the salad, and pieces of 
unknown yielding substance in the ragout. The butcher 
entertained us with pictures of Parisian life, with which 
he professed himself well acquainted; the brother sitting 
the while on the edge of the billiard table, toppling pre¬ 
cariously, and sucking the stump of a cigar. In the midst 
of these diversions, bang went a drum past the house, and 
a hoarse voice began issuing a proclamation. It was a 
man with marionettes announcing a performance for that 
evening. 

He had set up his caravan and lighted his candles on 
another part of the girls’ croquet green, under one of those 
open sheds which are so common in France to shelter 
markets; and he and his wife, by the time we strolled 
up there, were trying to keep order with the audience. 

It was the most absurd contention. The show people 
had set out a certain number of benches; and all who sat 
upon them were to pay a couple of sous for the accommo¬ 
dation. They were always quite full — a bumper house 
— as long as nothing was going forward; but let the show 
woman appear with an eye to a collection, and at the first 
rattle of the tambourine the audience slipped off the seats 
and stood round on the outside, with their hands in their 


136 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


pockets. It certainly would have tried an angel’s temper. 
The showman roared from the proscenium; he had been 
all over France, and nowhere, nowhere, “not even on the 
borders of Germany,” had he met with such misconduct. 
Such thieves, and rogues, and rascals as he called them! 
And now and again the wife issued on another round, and 
added her shrill quota to the tirade. I remarked here, as 
elsewhere, how far more copious is the female mind in 
the material of insult. The audience laughed in high 
good humor over the man’s declamations; but they 
bridled and cried aloud under the woman’s pungent sallies. 
She picked out the sore points. She had the honor of 
the village at her mercy. Voices answered her angrily 
out of the crowd, and received a smarting retort for their 
trouble. A couple of old ladies beside me, who had duly 
paid for their seats, waxed very red and indignant, and 
discoursed to each other audibly about the impudence of 
these mountebanks; but as soon as the show woman 
caught a whisper of this she was down upon them with a 
swoop; if mesdames could persuade their neighbors to 
act with common honesty, the mountebanks, she assured 
them, would be polite enough; mesdames had probably 
had their bowl of soup, and, perhaps, a glass of wine that 
evening; the mountebanks, also, had a taste for soup, 
and did not choose to have their little earnings stolen 
from them before their eyes. Once, things came as far 
as a brief personal encounter between the showman and 
some lads, in which the former went down as readily as 
one of his own marionettes to a peal of jeering laughter. 

I was a good deal astonished at this scene, because I 
am pretty well acquainted with the ways of French strollers 


PRfiCY AND THE MARIONETTES 137 


more or less artistic; and have always found them singu¬ 
larly pleasing. Any stroller must be dear to the right- 
thinking heart; if it were only as a living protest against 
offices and the mercantile spirit, and as something to 
remind us that life is not by necessity the kind of thing 
we generally make it. Even a German band, if you see 
it leaving town in the early morning for a campaign in 
country places, among trees and meadows, has a romantic 
flavor for the imagination. There is nobody under 
thirty so dead but his heart will stir a little at sight of a 
gipsies’ camp. “We are not cotton spinners all”; or, 
at least, not all through. There is some life in humanity 
yet; and youth will now and again find a brave word to 
say in dispraise of riches, and throw up a situation to go 
strolling with a knapsack. 

An Englishman has always special facilities for inter¬ 
course with French gymnasts; for England is the natural 
home of gymnasts. This or that fellow, in his tights and 
spangles, is sure to know a word or two of English, to have 
drunk English and, perhaps, performed in an 

English music hall. He is a countryman of mine by pro¬ 
fession. He leaps like the Belgian boating men to the 
notion that I must be an athlete myself. 

But the gymnast is not my favorite; he has little or 
no tincture of the artist in his composition; his soul is 
small and pedestrian, for the most part, since his profes¬ 
sion makes no call upon it, and does not accustom him to 
high ideas. But if a man is only so much of an actor that 
he can stumble through a farce, he is made free of a new 
order of thoughts. He has something else to think about 
beside the money box. He has a pride of his own, and, 


138 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


what is of far more importance, he has an aim before him 
that he can never quite attain. He has gone upon a pil¬ 
grimage that will last him his life long, because there is no 
end to it short of perfection. He will better himself a 
little day by day; or, even if he has given up the attempt, 
he will always remember that once upon a time he had 
conceived this high ideal, that once upon a time he fell in 
love with a star. “’Tis better to have loved and lost.” 
Although the moon should have nothing to say to Endy- 
mion, although he should settle down with Audrey and 
feed pigs, do you not think he would move with a better 
grace and cherish higher thoughts to the end ? The louts 
he meets at church never had a fancy above Audrey’s 
snood; but there is a reminiscence in Endymion’s heart 
that, like a spice, keeps it fresh and haughty. 

To be even one of the outskirters of art leaves a fine 
stamp on a man’s countenance. I remember once dining 
with a party in the inn at Chateau Landon. Most of 
them were unmistakable bagmen; others well-to-do 
peasantry; but there was one young fellow in a blouse, 
whose face stood out from among the rest surprisingly. 
It looked more finished; more of the spirit looked out 
through it; it had a living, expressive air, and you could 
see that his eyes took things in. My companion and I 
wondered greatly who and what he could be. It was 
fair time in Chateau Landon, and when we went along 
to the booths we had our question answered; for there 
was our friend busily fiddling for the peasants to caper to. 
He was a wandering violinist. 

A troop of strollers once came to the inn where I was 
staying, in the department of Seine et Marne. There 


PRECY AND THE MARIONETTES 139 


were a father and mother; two daughters, brazen, blowsy 
hussies, who sang and acted, without an idea of how to 
set about either; and a dark young man, like a tutor, a 
recalcitrant house painter, who sang and acted not amiss. 
The mother was the genius of the party, so far as genius 
can be spoken of with regard to such a pack of incompetent 
humbugs; and her husband could not find words to ex¬ 
press his admiration for her comic countryman. “You 
should see my old woman,” said he, and nodded his beery 
countenance. One night they performed in the stable 
yard with flaring lamps: a wretched exhibition, coldly 
looked upon by a village audience. Next night, as soon 
as the lamps were lighted, there came a plump of rain, 
and they had to sweep away their baggage as fast as 
possible, and make off to the barn, where they harbored, 
cold, wet, and supperless. In the morning a dear friend 
of mine, who has as warm a heart for strollers as I have 
myself, made a little collection, and sent it by my hands 
to comfort them for their disappointment. I gave it to 
the father; he thanked me cordially, and we drank a 
cup together in the kitchen, talking of roads and audiences, 
and hard times. 

When I was going, up got my old stroller, and off with 
his hat. “I am afraid,” said he, “that Monsieur will 
think me altogether a beggar; but I have another de¬ 
mand to make upon him.” I began to hate him on the 
spot. “We play again tonight,” he went on. “Of 
course I shall refuse to accept any more money from 
Monsieur and his friends, who have been already so liberal. 
But our program of tonight is something truly credit¬ 
able ; and I cling to the idea that Monsieur will honor us 


140 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


with his presence.” And then, with a shrug and a smile: 
“Monsieur understands, — the vanity of an artist!” 
Saye> the * mairk! The vanity of an artist! That is the 
kind of thing that reconciles me to life : a ragged, tippling, 
incompetent old rogue, with the manners of a gentleman 
and the vanity of an artist, to keep up his self-respect! 

But the man after my own heart is M. de Vauversin. ( 
It is nearly two years since I saw him first, and indeed I 
hope I may see him often again. Here is his first pro¬ 
gram as I found it on the breakfast table, and have kept 
it ever since as a relic of bright days: 
i *‘Mesdaffies et Messieurs, 

s i i“ Mademoiselle Ferrario et M. de Vauversin auront l’hon- 
neur, dej chanter ce soir les morceaux suivants. 

“Mademoiselle Ferrario chantera — Mignon — Oiseaux Le- 
gers — France — Des Frangais dorment la — le chateau bleu 
— Oft voulez-vous aller? 

“M. de Vauversin — Madame Fontaine et M. Robinet — 
Les plongeurs a cheval — Le Mari mecontent — Tais-toi, gamin 
TYj- Mon voisin l’original — Heureux comme ga — comme on est 

They made a stage at one end of the salle-a-manger. 
And what a sight it was to see M. de Vauversin, with a 
cigarette in his mouth, twanging a guitar, and following 
Mademoiselle Ferrario’s eyes with the obedient, kindly 
look of a dog! The entertainment wound up with a 
' tombola, or auction of lottery tickets: an admirable 
amusement^ with all the excitement of gambling, and no 
hope of gain to make you ashamed of your eagerness; for 
there, all is; loss; you make haste to be out of pocket; it 
is a competition who shall lose most money for the benefit 
of M. de Vauversin and Mademoiselle Ferrario. 



PRECY AND THE MARIONETTES 


141 


M. de Vauversin is a small man, with a great head of- 
black hair, a vivacious and engaging air, and a smile that' 
would be delightful if he had better teeth. He was once 
an actor in the Chatelet; but he contracted a nervous 
affection from the heat and glare of the footlights, which 
unfitted him for the stage. At this crisis Mademoiselle* 
Ferrario, otherwise Mademoiselle Rita of the Alcazar, 
agreed to share his wandering fortunes. “I could nevei? 
forget the generosity of that lady,” said he. He wears, 
trousers so tight that it has long been a problem to all 
who knew him how he manages to get in and out of /them. 
He sketches a little in watercolors, he writes: verses-; her 
is the most patient of fishermen, and spent long days at 
the bottom of the inn garden fruitlessly dabbling a line 
in the clear river. w is 

You should hear him recounting his experiences over ai 
bottle of wine; such a pleasant vein of talk as he has, with 
a ready smile at his own mishaps, and every now and;, 
then a sudden gravity, like a man who should hear the 
surf roar while he was telling the perils of the deep. Fot 
it was no longer ago than last night, perhaps, that the 
receipts only amounted to a franc and a half to cover 
three francs of railway fare and two of board and lodging. 
The Maire, a man worth a million of money; sat in the 
front seat, repeatedly applauding Mademoiselle Ferrario; 
and yet gave no more than three sous the whole evening/ 
Local authorities look with such an evil eye rnponi the 
strolling artist. Alas! I know it well, who have been 
myself taken for one, and pitilessly incarcerated oh the 
strength of the misapprehension. Once, M. de Yauversin 
visited a commissary of police for permission to sing* ; The 


142 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


commissary, who was smoking at his ease, politely doffed 
his hat upon the singer’s entrance. “Mr. Commissary,” 
he began, “I am an artist.” And on went the com¬ 
missary’s hat again. No courtesy for the companions of 
Apollo! “ They are as degraded as that,” said M. de 

Vauversin, with a sweep of his cigarette. 

But what pleased me most was one outbreak of his, 
when we had been talking all the evening of the rubs, in¬ 
dignities, and pinchings of his wandering life. Some one 
said it would be better to have a million of money down, 
and Mademoiselle Ferrario admitted that she would 
prefer that mightily. “Eh hien, moi non; — not I,” cried 
De Vauversin, striking the table with his hand. “If 
any one is a failure in the world, is it not I? I had an 
art, in which I have done things well, — as well as some, 
better, perhaps, than others; and now it is closed against 
me. I must go about the country gathering coppers 
and singing nonsense. Do you think I regret my life? 
Do you think I would rather be a fat burgess, like a calf ? 
Not I! I have had moments when I have been applauded 
on the boards : I think nothing of that; but I have known 
in my own mind sometimes, when I had not a clap from 
the whole house, that I had found a true intonation, or 
an exact and speaking gesture; and then, messieurs, I 
have known what pleasure was, what it was to do a thing 
well, what it was to be an artist. And to know what 
art is, is to have an interest forever, such as no burgess 
can find in his petty concerns. Tenez, messieurs , je vais 
vous le dire, — it is like a religion.” 

Such, making some allowance for the tricks of memory 
and the inaccuracies of translation, was the profession of 


PRECY AND THE MARIONETTES 143 


faith of M. de Vauversin. I have given him his own 
name, lest any other wanderer should come across him, 
with his guitar and cigarette, and Mademoiselle Ferrario; 
for should not all the world delight to honor this un¬ 
fortunate and loyal follower of the Muses? May Apollo 
send him rhymes hitherto undreamed of; may the river 
be no longer scanty of her silver fishes to his lure; may the 
cold not pinch him on long winter rides, nor the village 
jack-in-office affront him with unseemly manners; and 
may he never miss Mademoiselle Ferrario from his side, 
to follow with his dutiful eyes and accompany on the 
guitar! 

The marionettes made a very dismal entertainment. 
They performed a piece called Pyramus and Thisbe, in 
five mortal acts, and all written in Alexandrines fully as 
long as the performers. One marionette was the king; 
another the wicked counsellor; a third, credited with 
exceptional beauty, represented Thisbe; and then there 
were guards, and obdurate fathers, and walking gentlemen. 
Nothing particular took place during the two or three 
acts that I sat out; but you will be pleased to learn that 
the unities were properly respected, and the whole piece, 
with one exception, moved in harmony with classical 
rules. That exception was the comic countryman, a lean 
marionette in wooden shoes, who spoke in prose and in 
a broad patois much appreciated by the audience. He 
took unconstitutional liberties with the person of his 
sovereign; kicked his fellow-marionettes in the mouth 
with his wooden shoes, and whenever none of the versi¬ 
fying suitors were about, made love to Thisbe on his own 
account in comic prose. 


144 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


This felloes evolutions, and the little prologue, in which 
bhe showman made a humorous eulogium of his troop, 
praising their indifference to applause and hisses, and their 
single devotion to their art, were the only circumstances 
in the whole affair that you could fancy would so much as 
raise a smile. But the villagers of Precy seemed delighted. 
Indeed, so long as a thing is an exhibition, and you pay to 
see fit, it is nearly certain to amuse. If we were charged 
SO: much a-liead for sunsets, or if God sent round a drum 
before the hawthorns came in flower, what work should 
we 1 not make about their beauty! But these things, like 
good companions, stupid people early cease to observe 
and; the Abstract Bagman tittups past in his spring gig, 
and is positively not aware of the flowers along the lane, 
or the Scenery of the weather overhead. 

;gnid erf! ax; 
xftiw bo.tilm: 
o-wdl n c )th b 
.nomoBnog gr 
widt io owt 
txsdt irmof o! 

,sooiq slodw 
laoiggeb ritiv 
njiol n ,ruirny 
ni bnx; oaoiq 
oH .oonoibn 
eid fo noaie> 
dtuom odl i 
-igiov odl Io 
nwo aid no 


8M 

i oJ bodaiw I 
»rn biuoD ban 
i bjs lognol on 
>1 i> oa bn A 

BACK TO THE WORLD ■Ww 

'IIuMJijd bud 

Of the next two days’ sail little remains in my mind, and 
nothing whatever in my notebook. The river streamed 
on steadily through pleasant riverside landscapes. 
Washerwomen in blue dresses, fishers in blue blouses; 
diversified the green banks; and the relation of the two 
colors was like that of the flower and the leaf in the 
forget-me-not. A symphony in forget-me-not; I think 
Theophile Gautier might thus have characterized that 
two days’ panorama. The sky was blue and cloudless; 
and the sliding surface of the river held up, in smooth 
places, a mirror to the heaven and the shores. The 
washerwomen hailed us laughingly; and the noise of 
trees and water made an accompaniment to our dozing 
thoughts, as we fleeted down the stream. 

The great volume, the indefatigable purpose of the 
river, held the mind in chain. It seemed now so sure of 
its end, so strong and easy in its gait, like a grown man 
full of determination. The surf was roaring for it on 
the sands of Havre. For my own part slipping along 
this moving thoroughfare in my fiddle-case of a canoe, I 
also was beginning to grow aweary for my ocean. To the 
civilized man there must come, sooner or later, a desire 
for civilization. I was weary of dipping the paddle; I 
was weary of living on the skirts of life; I wished to be 
in the thick of it once more; I wished to get to work; 

145 


146 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


I wished to meet people who understood my own speech, 
and could meet with me on equal terms, as a man, and 
no longer as a curiosity. 

And so a letter at Pontoise decided us, and we drew up 
our keels for the last time out of that river of Oise that 
had faithfully piloted them, through rain and sunshine, 
for so long. For so many miles had this fleet and footless 
beast of burden charioted our fortunes that we turned 
our back upon it with a sense of separation. We had a 
long detour out of the world, but now we were back in 
the familiar places, where life itself makes all the running, 
and we are carried to meet adventure without a stroke 
of the paddle. Now we were to return, like the voyager 
in the play, and see what rearrangements fortune had 
perfected the while in our surroundings; what surprises 
stood ready-made for us at home; and whither and how 
far the world had voyaged in our absence. You may 
paddle all day long; but it is when you come back at 
nightfall, and look in at the familiar room, that you find 
Love or Death awaiting you beside the stove; and the 
most beautiful adventures are not those we go to seek. 


EPILOGUE TO “ AN INLAND VOYAGE ” 

The country where they journeyed, that green, breezy 
valley of the Loing, is one very attractive to cheerful and 
solitary people. The weather was superb; all night it 
thundered and lightened, and the rain fell in sheets; by 
day, the heavens were cloudless, the sun fervent, the air 
vigorous and pure. They walked separate: the Cigarette 
plodding behind with some philosophy, the lean Arethusa 
posting on ahead. Thus each enjoyed his own reflections 
by the way; each had perhaps time to tire of them be¬ 
fore he met his comrade at the designated inn; and the 
pleasures of society and solitude combined to fill the 
day. The Arethusa carried in his knapsack the works of 
Charles of Orleans, and employed some of the hours of 
travel in the concoction of English roundels. In this 
path, he must thus have preceded Mr. Lang, Mr. Dobson, 
Mr. Henley, and all contemporary roundeleers; but for 
good reasons, he will be the last to publish the result. The 
Cigarette walked burdened with a volume of Michelet. 
And both these books, it will be seen, played a part in the 
subsequent adventure. 

The Arethusa was unwisely dressed. He is no precisian 
in attire; but by all accounts, he was never so ill-inspired 
as on that tramp; having set forth indeed, upon a mo¬ 
ment’s notice, from the most unfashionable spot in Europe, 
Barbizon. On his head, he wore a smoking cap of Indian 
147 


148 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


work, the gold lace pitifully frayed and tarnished. A 
flannel shirt of an agreeable dark hue, which the satirical 
called black; a light tweed coat made by a good English 
tailor; ready-made cheap linen trousers and leathern 
gaiters completed his array. In person, he is exceptionally 
lean; and his face is not like those of happier mortals, a 
certificate. For years he could not pass a frontier or 
visit a bank without suspicion; the police everywhere 
but in his native city looked askance upon him; and 
(though I am sure it will not be credited) he is actually 
denied admittance to the casino of Monte Carlo. If you 
will imagine him, dressed as above, stooping under his 
knapsack, walking nearly five miles an hour with the 
folds of the ready-made trousers fluttering about his 
spindleshanks, and still looking eagerly round him as if 
in terror of pursuit — the figure, when realized, is far 
from reassuring. When Villon journeyed (perhaps by 
the same pleasant valley) to his exile at Roussillon, I 
wonder if he had not something of the same appearance. 
Something of the same preoccupation he had beyond a 
doubt, for he too must have tinkered verses as he walked, 
with more success than his successor. And if he had 
anything like the same inspiring weather, the same nights 
of uproar, men in armor rolling and resounding down the 
stairs of heaven, the rain hissing on the village streets, 
the wild bull’s-eye of the storm flashing all night long 
into the bare inn chamber — the same sweet return of 
day, the same unfathomable blue of noon, the same high- 
colored, halcyon eyes — and above all if he had anything 
like as good a comrade, anything like as keen a relish for 
what he saw, and what he ate, and the rivers that he 


EPILOGUE TO “AN INLAND VOYAGE” 149 


bathed in, and the rubbish that he wrote, I would exchange 
estates today with the poor exile, and count myself a 
gainer. 

But there was another point of similarity between the 
two journeys, for which the Arethusa was to pay dear: 
both were gone upon in days of incomplete security. It 
was not long after the Franco-Prussian war. Swiftly as 
men forget, that countryside was still alive with tale 
of uhlans, and outlying sentries, and hairbreadth ’scapes 
from the ignominious cord, and pleasant momentary 
friendships between invader and invaded. A year, at 
the most two years later, you might have tramped all 
that country over and not heard one anecdote. And a 
year or two later, you would — if you were a rather ill- 
looking young man in nondescript array — have gone 
your rounds in greater safety; for along with more inter¬ 
esting matter, the Prussian spy would have somewhat 
faded from men’s imaginations. 

For all that, our voyager had got beyond Chateau 
Renard before he was conscious of arousing wonder. On 
the road between that place and Chatillon-sur-Loing, how¬ 
ever, he encountered a rural postman; they fell together 
in talk, and spoke of a variety of subjects; but through 
one and all, the postman was still visibly preoccupied, 
and his eyes were faithful to the Arethusa’s knapsack. 
At last, with mysterious roguishness, he inquired what it 
contained, and on being answered, shook his head with 
kindly incredulity. “ Non ,” said he, “non, vous avez des 
portraits .” And then with a languishing appeal, “ Voyons, 
show me the portraits!” It was some little while before 
the Arethusa , with a shout of laughter, recognized his 


150 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


drift. By portraits he meant indecent photographs; 
and in the Arethusa, an austere and rising author, he 
thought to have identified a pornographic colporteur. 
When countryfolk in France have made up their minds 
as to a person’s calling, argument is fruitless. Along all 
the rest of the way, the postman piped and fluted melt- 
ingly to get a sight of the collection; now he would 
upbraid, now he would reason — “ Voyons, I will tell no¬ 
body”; then he tried corruption, and insisted on paying 
for a glass of wine; and, at last, when their ways sepa¬ 
rated-— “Non” said he, “ce n’est pas bien de votre part. 
0 non, ce n’est pas bien.” And shaking his head with quite 
a sentimental sense of injury, he departed unrefreshed. 

On certain little difficulties encountered by the Arethusa 
at Chatillon-sur-Loing, I have not space to dwell; an¬ 
other Chatillon, of grislier memory, looms too near at 
hand. But the next day, in a certain hamlet called La 
Jussiere, he stopped to drink a glass of syrup in a very 
poor, bare drinking shop. The hostess, a comely woman, 
suckling a child, examined the traveler with kindly and 
pitying eyes. “You are not of this department?” she 
asked. The Arethusa told her he was English. “Ah!” 
she said, surprised, “We have no English. We have 
many Italians, however, and they do very well; they do 
not complain of the people of hereabouts. An English¬ 
man may do very well also; it will be something new,” 
Here was a dark saying, over which the Arethusa pondered 
as he drank his grenadine; but when he rose and asked 
what was to pay, the light came upon him in a flash. 
“0, pour vous,” replied the landlady, “a halfpenny!” 
Pour vous ? By heaven, she took him for a beggar! He 


EPILOGUE TO “AN INLAND VOYAGE” 151 


paid his halfpenny, feeling that it were ungracious to 
correct her. But when he was forth again upon the 
road, he became vexed in spirit. The conscience is a 
gentleman, he is a rabbinical fellow; and his conscience 
told him he had stolen the syrup. 

That night the travelers slept in Gien; the next day 
they passed the river and set forth (severally, as their 
custom was) on a short stage through the green plain 
upon the Berry side, to Chatillon-sur-Loire. It was the 
first day of the shooting; and the air rang with the re¬ 
port of firearms and the admiring cries of sportsmen. 
Overhead the birds were in consternation, wheeling in 
clouds, settling and rearising. And yet with all this 
bustle on either hand, the road itself lay solitary. The 
Arethusa smoked a pipe beside a milestone, and I remem¬ 
ber he laid down very exactly all he was to do at Chatillon : 
how he was to enjoy a cold plunge, to change his shirt, 
and to await the Cigarette’s arrival, in sublime inaction, 
by the margin of the Loire. Fired by these ideas, he 
pushed the more rapidly forward, and came, early in the 
afternoon and in a breathing heat, to the entering-in of 
that ill-fated town. Childe Roland to the dark tower came. 

A polite gendarme threw his shadow on the path. 

“ Monsieur est voyageur ?” he asked. 

And the Arethusa, strong in his innocence, forgetful of 
his vile attire, replied — I had almost said with gaiety: 
“So it would appear.” 

“His papers are in order?” said the gendarme. And 
when the Arethusa , with a slight change of voice, admitted 
he had none, he was informed (politely enough) that he 
must appear before the Commissary. 


152 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


The Commissary sat at a table in his bedroom, stripped 
to the shirt and trousers, but still copiously perspiring; 
and when he turned upon the prisoner a large meaningless 
countenance, that was (like Bardolph’s) “all whelks and 
bubuckles,” the dullest might have been prepared for 
grief. Here was a stupid man, sleepy with the heat and 
fretful at the interruption, whom neither appeal nor 
argument could reach. 

The Commissary. You have no papers ? 

The Arethusa. Not here. 

The Commissary. Why ? 

The Arethusa. I have left them behind in my valise. 

The Commissary. You know, however, that it is for¬ 
bidden to circulate without papers ? 

The Arethusa. Pardon me; I am convinced of the 
contrary. I am here on my rights as an English subject 
by international treaty. 

The Commissary ( with scorn). You call yourself an 
Englishman ? 

The Arethusa. I do. 

The Commissary. Humph. — What is your trade ? 

The Arethusa. I am a Scotch Advocate. 

The Commissary {with singular annoyance ). A Scotch 
advocate! Do you then pretend to support yourself by 
that in this department ? 

The Arethusa modestly disclaimed the pretension. The 
Commissary had scored a point. 

The Commissary. Why, then, do you travel ? 

The Arethusa. I travel for pleasure. 

The Commissary ( pointing to the knapsack, and with 
sublime incredulity). Avec gaf Voyez-vous, je suis un 


EPILOGUE TO “AN INLAND VOYAGE” 153 


homme intelligent! (With that? Look here, I am a 
person of intelligence!) 

The culprit remaining silent under this home thrust, 
the Commissary relished his triumph for awhile, and then 
demanded (like the postman, but with what different ex¬ 
pectations !) to see the contents of the knapsack. And 
here the Arethusa, not yet sufficiently awake to his posi¬ 
tion, fell into a grave mistake. There was little or no 
furniture in the room except the Commissary’s chair and 
table; and to facilitate matters, the Arethusa (with all the 
innocence on earth) leant the knapsack on a corner of the 
bed. The Commissary fairly bounded from his seat; 
his face and neck flushed past purple, almost into blue; 
and he screamed to lay the desecrating object on the floor. 

The knapsack proved to contain a change of shirts, of 
shoes, of socks, and of linen trousers, a small dressing 
case, a piece of soap in one of the shoes, two volumes of 
the Collection Jannet lettered Poesies de Charles d’Orleans, 
a map, and a version book containing divers notes in prose 
and the remarkable English roundels of the voyager, 
still to this day unpublished : the Commissary of Chatillon 
is the only living man who has clapped an eye on these 
artistic trifles. He turned the assortment over with a 
contumelious finger; it was plain from his daintiness 
that he regarded the Arethusa and all his belongings as 
the very temple of infection. Still there was nothing sus¬ 
picious about the map, nothing really criminal except 
the roundels; as for Charles of Orleans, to the ignorant 
mind of the prisoner, he seemed as good as a certificate; 
and it was supposed the farce was nearly over. 

The inquisitor resumed his seat. 


154 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


The Commissary (after a pause). Eh hien, je mis vous 
dire ce que vous etes. Vous etes allemand et vous venez chanter 
a la foire. (Well, then, I will tell you what you are. You 
are a German and have come to sing at the fair.) 

The Arethusa. Would you like to hear me sing? 
I believe I could convince you of the contrary. 

The Commissary. Paz de plaisanterie, monsieur ! 

The Arethusa. Well, sir, oblige me at least by look¬ 
ing at this book. Here, I open it with my eyes shut. 
Read one of these songs — read this one — and tell me, 
you who are a man of intelligence, if it would be possible 
to sing it at a fair ? 

The Commissary (critically). Mais oui. Tres hien. 

The Arethusa. Comment, monsieur! What! But 
you do not observe it is antique. It is difficult to under¬ 
stand, even for you and me; but for the audience at a fair, 
it would be meaningless. 

The Commissary (taking a pen). Enfin, ilfaut en finir. 
What is your name ? 

The Arethusa (speaking with the swallowing vivacity of 
the English). Robert-Louis-Stev’ns’n. 

The Commissary (aghast). He! Quoi! 

The Arethusa (perceiving and improving his advantage). 
Rob’rt-Lou’s-Stev’ns’n. 

The Commissary (after several conflicts with his pen). 
Eh hien, il faut se passer du nom. Qa ne s’ecrit pas. 
(Well, we must do without the name : it is unspellable.) 

The above is a rough summary of this momentous con¬ 
versation, in which I have been chiefly careful to preserve 
the plums of the Commissary; but the remainder of the 
scene, perhaps because of his rising anger, has left but 


EPILOGUE TO “AN INLAND VOYAGE” 155 


little definite in the memory of the Arethusa. The Com¬ 
missary was not, I think, a practised literary man; no 
sooner, at least, had he taken pen in hand and embarked 
on the composition of the proces-verbal, than he became 
distinctly more uncivil and began to show a predilection 
for that simplest of all forms of repartee: “You lie!” 
Several times the Arethusa let it pass, and then suddenly 
flared up, refused to accept more insults or to answer 
further questions, defied the Commissary to do his worst, 
and promised him, if he did, that he should bitterly repent 
it. Perhaps if he had worn this proud front from the first, 
instead of beginning with a sense of entertainment and 
then going on to argue, the thing might have turned other¬ 
wise ; for even at this eleventh hour the Commissary was 
visibly staggered. But it was too late; he had been chal¬ 
lenged ; the proces-verbal was begun; and he again squared 
his elbows over his writing, and the Arethusa was led forth 
a prisoner. 

A step or two down the hot road stood the gendarmerie. 
Thither was our unfortunate conducted, and there he 
was bidden to empty forth the contents of his pockets. 
A handkerchief, a pen, a pencil, a pipe and tobacco, 
matches, and some ten francs of change: that was all. 
Not a file, not a cipher, not a scrap of writing whether 
to identify or to condemn. The very gendarme was ap¬ 
palled before such destitution. 

“I regret,” he said, “that I arrest you, for I see that 
you are no voyou” And he promised him every indul¬ 
gence. 

The Arethusa , thus encouraged, asked for his pipe. 
That he was told was impossible, but if he chewed, he 


156 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


might have some tobacco. He did not chew, however, 
and asked instead to have his handkerchief. 

“Non,” said the gendarme. “Nous avons eu des 
histoires de gens qui se sont pendus.” (No, we have had 
histories of people who hanged themselves.) 

“What,” cried the Arethusa. “And is it for that you 
refuse me my handkerchief? But see how much more 
easily I could hang myself in my trousers ! ” 

The man was struck by the novelty of the idea; but 
he stuck to his colors, and only continued to repeat vague 
offers of service. 

“ At least,” said the Arethusa, “ be sure that you arrest 
my comrade; he will follow me ere long on the same road, 
and you can tell him by the sack upon his shoulders.” 

This promised, the prisoner was led round into the 
back court of the building, a cellar door was opened, he 
was motioned down the stair, and bolts grated and chains 
clanged behind his descending person. 

The philosophic and still more the imaginative mind is 
apt to suppose itself prepared for any mortal accident. 
Prison, among other ills, was one that had been often faced 
by the undaunted Arethusa. Even as he went down the 
stairs, he was telling himself that here was a famous 
occasion for a roundel, and that like the committed linnets 
of the tuneful cavalier, he too would make his prison musi¬ 
cal. I will tell the truth at once: the roundel was never 
written, or it should be printed in this place, to raise a 
smile. Two reasons interfered : the first moral, the second 
physical. 

It is one of the curiosities of human nature, that al¬ 
though all men are liars, they can none of them bear to 


EPILOGUE TO “AN INLAND VOYAGE” 157 


be told so of themselves. To get and take the lie with 
equanimity is a stretch beyond the stoic; and the Arethusa, 
who had been surfeited upon that insult, was blazing in¬ 
wardly with a white heat of smothered wrath. But the 
physical had also its part. The cellar in which he was con¬ 
fined was some feet underground, and it was only lighted 
by an unglazed, narrow aperture high up in the wall and 
smothered in the leaves of a green vine. The walls were 
of naked masonry, the floor of bare earth; by way of furni¬ 
ture there was an earthenware basin, a water jug, and a 
wooden bedstead with a blue-grey cloak for bedding. To 
be taken from the hot air of a summer’s afternoon, the 
reverberation of the road and the stir of rapid exercise, 
and plunged into the gloom and damp of this receptacle 
for vagabonds, struck an instant chill upon the Arethusa’s 
blood. Now see in how small a matter a hardship may 
consist: the floor was exceedingly uneven underfoot, 
with the very spade marks, I suppose, of the laborers 
who dug the foundations of the barrack; and what with 
the poor twilight and the irregular surface, walking was 
impossible. The caged author resisted for a good while; 
but the chill of the place struck deeper and deeper; and 
at length, with such reluctance as you may fancy, he was 
driven to climb upon the bed and wrap himself in the pub¬ 
lic covering. There, then, he lay upon the verge of shiver¬ 
ing, plunged in semidarkness, wound in a garment whose 
touch he dreaded like the plague, and (in a spirit far re¬ 
moved from resignation) telling the roll of the insults he 
had just received. These are not circumstances favor¬ 
able to the muse. 

Meantime (to look at the upper surface where the sun 


158 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


was still shining and the guns of sportsmen were still noisy 
through the tufted plain) the Cigarette was drawing near 
at his more philosophic pace. In those days of liberty and 
health he was the constant partner of the Arethusa, and 
had ample opportunity to share in that gentleman’s dis¬ 
favor with the police. Many a bitter bowl had he par¬ 
taken of with that disastrous comrade. He was himself 
a man born to float easily through life, his face and manner 
artfully recommending him to all. There was but one 
suspicious circumstance he could not carry off, and that 
was his companion. He will not readily forget the Com¬ 
missary in what is ironically called the free town of Frank- 
fort-on-the-Main; nor the Franco-Belgian frontier; nor 
the inn at La Fere; last, but not least, he is pretty certain 
to remember Chatillon-sur-Loire. 

At the town entry, the gendarme culled him like a 
wayside flower; and a moment later, two persons, in a 
high state of surprise, were confronted in the Commis¬ 
sary’s office. For if the Cigarette was surprised to be 
arrested, the Commissary was no less taken aback by the 
appearance and appointments of his captive. Here was 
a man about whom there could be no mistake: a man 
of an unquestionable and unassailable manner, in apple- 
pie order, dressed not with neatness merely but elegance, 
ready with his passport, at a word, and well supplied with 
money: a man the Commissary would have doffed his 
hat to on chance upon the highways; and this beau 
cavalier unblushingly claimed the Arethusa for his com¬ 
rade ! The conclusion of the interview was foregone; of 
its humors, I remember only one. “Baronet?” de¬ 
manded the magistrate, glancing up from the passport. 


EPILOGUE TO “AN INLAND VOYAGE” 159 


“ Alors, monsieur, vous etes le fils d’un baron ? ” And when 
the Cigarette (his one mistake throughout the interview) 
denied the soft impeachment, “Alors” from the Com¬ 
missary, “ ce n’est pas votre passeport!” But these were 
ineffectual thunders; he never dreamed of laying hands 
upon the Cigarette; presently he fell into a mood of unre¬ 
strained admiration, gloating over the contents of the 
knapsack, commending our friend’s tailor. Ah, what an 
honored guest was the Commissary entertaining! what 
suitable clothes he wore for the warm weather! what 
beautiful maps, what an attractive work of history he car¬ 
ried in his knapsack! You are to understand there was 
now but one point of difference between them: what was 
to be done with the Arethusaf the Cigarette demanding 
his release, the Commissary still claiming him as the dun¬ 
geon’s own. Now it chanced that the Cigarette had passed 
some years of his life in Egypt, where he had made ac¬ 
quaintance with two very bad things, cholera morbus 
and pashas; and in the eye of the Commissary, as he 
fingered the volume of Michelet, it seemed to our traveler 
there was something Turkish. I pass over this lightly; 
it is highly possible there was some misunderstanding, 
highly possible that the Commissary (charmed with his 
visitor) supposed the attraction to be mutual and took 
for an act of growing friendship what the Cigarette himself 
regarded as a bribe. And at any rate, was there ever a 
bribe more singular than an odd volume of Michelet’s 
history? The work was promised him for the morrow, 
before our departure; and presently after, either because 
he had his price, or to show that he was not the man to 
be behind in friendly offices — “Eh bien,” he said, “je 


160 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


suppose qu’il faut lacker votrc camarade.” And he tore 
up that feast of humor, the unfinished proces-verbal. 
Ah, if he had only torn up instead the Arethusa’s roundels ! 
There were many works burnt at Alexandria, there are 
many treasured in the British Museum, that I could bet¬ 
ter spare than the proces-verbal of Chatillon. Poor bu- 
buckled Commissary! I begin to be sorry that he never 
had his Michelet: perceiving in him fine human traits, a 
broad-based stupidity, a gusto in his magisterial func¬ 
tions, a taste for letters, a ready admiration for the ad¬ 
mirable. And if he did not admire the Arethusa , he was 
not alone in that. 

To the imprisoned one, shivering under the public 
covering, there came suddenly a noise of bolts and chains. 
He sprang to his feet, ready to welcome a companion in 
calamity; and instead of that, the door was flung wide, 
the friendly gendarme appeared above in the strong day¬ 
light, and with a magnificent gesture (being probably a 
student of the drama) — “Vous etes libre!” he said. 
None too soon for the Arethusa. I doubt if he had been 
half an hour imprisoned; but by the watch in a man’s 
brain (which was the only watch he carried) he should 
have been eight times longer; and he passed forth with 
ecstasy up the cellar stairs into the healing warmth of the 
afternoon sun; and the breath of the earth came as sweet 
as a cow’s into his nostril; and he heard again (and could 
have laughed for pleasure) the concord of delicate noises 
that we call the hum of life. 

And here it might be thought that my history ended; 
but not so, this was an act-drop and not the curtain. 
Upon what followed in front of the barrack, since there 


EPILOGUE TO “AN INLAND VOYAGE” 161 


was a lady in the case, I scruple to expatiate. The wife 
of the Marechal-des-logis was a handsome woman, and 
yet the Arethusa was not sorry to be gone from her society. 
Something of her image, cool as a peach on that hot after¬ 
noon, still lingers in his memory: yet more of her con¬ 
versation. “You have there a very fine parlor,” said 
the poor gentleman. — “ Ah,” said Madame la Marechale 
(des-logis ), “you are very well acquainted with such par¬ 
lors ! ” And you should have seen with what a hard 
and scornful eye she measured the vagabond before her! 
I do not think he ever hated the Commissary; but before 
that interview was at an end, he hated Madame la Mare¬ 
chale. His passion (as I am led to understand by one who 
was present) stood confessed in a burning eye, a pale cheek, 
and a trembling utterance; Madame meanwhile tasting 
the joys of the matador, goading him with barbed words 
and staring him coldly down. 

It was certainly good to be away from this lady, and 
better still to sit down to an excellent dinner in the inn. 
Here, too, the despised travelers scraped acquaintance 
with their next neighbor, a gentleman of these parts, 
returned from the day’s sport, who had the good taste to 
find pleasure in their society. The dinner at an end, the 
gentleman proposed the acquaintance should be ripened 
in the cafe. 

The cafe was crowded with sportsmen conclamantly 
explaining to each other and the world the smallness of 
their bags. About the center of the room, the Cigarette 
and the Arethusa sat with their new acquaintance; a trio 
very well pleased, for the travelers (after their late ex¬ 
perience) were greedy of consideration, and their sports- 


162 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 


man rejoiced in a pair of patient listeners. Suddenly the 
glass door flew open with a crash; the Marechal-des-logis 
appeared in the interval, gorgeously belted and befrogged, 
entered without salutation, strode up the room with a 
clang of spurs and weapons, and disappeared through a 
door at the far end. Close at his heels followed the 
Arethusa’s gendarme of the afternoon, imitating, with a 
nice shade of difference, the imperial bearing of his chief; 
only, as he passed, he struck lightly with his open hand 
on the shoulder of his late captive, and with that ringing, 
dramatic utterance of which he had the secret — “ Suivez !” 
said he. 

The arrest of the members, the oath of the Tennis Court, 
the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Mark 
Antony’s oration, all the brave scenes of history, I con¬ 
ceive as having been not unlike that evening in the cafe 
at Chatillon. Terror breathed upon the assembly. A 
moment later, when the Arethusa had followed his re¬ 
captors into the farther part of the house, the Cigarette 
found himself alone with his coffee in a ring of empty chairs 
and tables, all the lusty sportsmen huddled into corners, 
all their clamorous voices hushed in whispering, all their 
eyes shooting at him furtively as at a leper. 

And the Arethusa ? Well, he had a long, sometimes a 
trying, interview in the back kitchen. The Marechal- 
des-logis, who was a very handsome man, and I believe 
both intelligent and honest, had no clear opinion on the 
case. He thought the Commissary had done wrong, but 
he did not wish to get his subordinates into trouble; and 
he proposed this, that, and the other, to all of which the 
Arethusa (with a growing sense of his position) demurred. 


EPILOGUE TO “AN INLAND VOYAGE” 163 


“In short,” suggested the Arethusa, “you want to wash 
your hands of further responsibility? Well, then, let me 
go to Paris.” 

The Marechal-des-logis looked at his watch. 

“You may leave,” said he, “by the ten o’clock train 
for Paris.” 

And at noon the next day the travelers were telling 
their misadventure in the dining room at Siron’s. 


/ 










TRAVELS WITH 


DONKEY 





My Dear Sidney Colvin, 

The journey which this little book is to describe was very agree¬ 
able and fortunate for me. After an uncouth beginning, I had 
the best of luck to the end. But we are all travelers in what 
John Bunyan calls the wilderness of this world, — all, too, trav¬ 
elers with a donkey; and the best that we find in our travels is 
an honest friend. He is a fortunate voyager who finds many. 
We travel, indeed, to find them. They are the end and the re¬ 
ward of life. They keep us worthy of ourselves; and, when 
we are alone, we are only nearer to the absent. 

Every book is, in an intimate sense, a circular letter to the 
friends of him who writes it. They alone take his meaning; they 
find private messages, assurances of love, and expressions of grati¬ 
tude dropped for them in every corner. The public is but a gen¬ 
erous patron who defrays the postage. Yet, though the letter 
is directed to all, we have an old and kindly custom of addressing 
it on the outside to one. Of what shall a man be proud, if he is 
not proud of his friends ? And so, my dear Sidney Colvin, it is 
with pride that I sign myself affectionately yours, 

R. L. S. 


166 


CONTENTS 






Page 

Velay: 

The Donkey, the Pack, and the 

Pack-Saddle 

. 169 

The Green Donkey Driver 




. 177 

I Have a Goad .... 




. 188 

Upper Gevaudan: 

A Camp in the Dark . 




. 197 

Cheylard and Luc 




. 209 

Our Lady of the Snows: 

Father Apollinaris 




. 214 

The Monks. 




. 220 

The Boarders .... 




. 229 

Upper Gevaudan ( Continued ): 

Across the Goulet 




. 237 

A Night among the Pines . 




. 241 

The Country of the Camisards: 

Across the Lozere 




. 247 

Pont de Montvert 




. 255 

In the Valley of the Tarn 




. 263 

Florac . 




. 275 

In the Valley of the Mimente 




. 278 

The Heart of the Country 




. 283 

The Last Day .... 




. 291 

Farewell, Modestine 

. 



. 297 


167 

















VELAY 


“ Many are the mighty things , and nought is more 
mighty than man. . . . He masters by his devices 
the tenant of the fields.” — Antigone. 

“ Who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass ? ” — Job. 

THE DONKEY, THE PACK, AND THE 
PACK-SADDLE 

In a little place called Le Monastier, in a pleasant high¬ 
land valley fifteen miles from Le Puy, I spent about a 
month of fine days. Monastier is notable for the making 
of lace, for drunkenness, for freedom of language, and for 
unparalleled political dissension. There are adherents 
of each of the four French parties — Legitimists, Orlean- 
ists, Imperialists, and Republicans — in this little moun¬ 
tain town; and they all hate, loathe, decry, and calum¬ 
niate each other. Except for business purposes, or to 
give each other the lie in a tavern brawl, they have laid 
aside even the civility of speech. J Tis a mere mountain 
Poland. In the midst of this Babylon I found myself a 
rallying point; every one was anxious to be kind and 
helpful to the stranger. This was not merely from the 
natural hospitality of mountain people, nor even from the 
surprise with which I was regarded as a man living of his 
own free will in Monastier, when he might just as well 
have lived anywhere else in this big world; it arose a good 
deal from my projected excursion southward through, the 
169 


170 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


Cevennes. A traveler of my sort was a thing hitherto 
unheard of in that district. I was looked upon with con¬ 
tempt, like a man who should project a journey to the 
moon, but yet with a respectful interest, like one setting 
forth for the inclement Pole. All were ready to help in my 
preparations; a crowd of sympathizers supported me at 
the critical moment of a bargain; not a step was taken 
but was heralded by glasses round and celebrated by a 
dinner or a breakfast. 

It was already hard upon October before I was ready 
to set forth, and at the high altitudes over which my road 
lay there was no Indian summer to be looked for. I was 
determined, if not to camp out, at least to have the means 
of camping out in my possession; for there is nothing more 
harassing to an easy mind than the necessity of reaching 
shelter by dusk, and the hospitality of a village inn is not 
always to be reckoned sure by those who trudge on foot. 
A tent, above all for a solitary traveler, is troublesome to 
pitch, and troublesome to strike again; and even on the 
march it forms a conspicuous feature in your baggage. 
A sleeping sack, on the other hand, is always ready — 
you have only to get into it; it serves a double purpose 
— a bed by night, a portmanteau by day; and it does 
not advertise your intention of camping out to every 
curious passer-by. This is a huge point. If the camp is 
not secret, it is but a troubled resting place; you become 
a public character; the convivial rustic visits your bedside 
after an early supper; and you must sleep with one eye 
open, and be up before the day. I decided on a sleeping 
sack; and after repeated visits to Le Puy, and a deal of 
high living for myself and my advisers, a sleeping sack 


VELAY 


171 


was designed, constructed, and triumphantly brought 
home. 

This child of my invention was nearly six feet square, 
exclusive of two triangular flaps to serve as a pillow by 
night and as the top and bottom of the sack by day. I 
call it “the sack,” but it was never a sack by more than 
courtesy: only a sort of long roll or sausage, green water¬ 
proof cart cloth without and blue sheep’s fur within. It 
was commodious as a valise, warm and dry for a bed. 
There was luxurious turning room for one; and at a pinch 
the thing might serve for two. I could bury myself 
in it up to the neck; for my head I trusted to a fur cap, 
with a hood to fold down over my ears and a band to 
pass under my nose like a respirator; and in case of 
heavy rain I proposed to make myself a little tent, or 
ten tie t, with my waterproof coat, three stones, and a 
bent branch. 

It will readily be conceived that I could not carry this 
huge package on my own, merely human, shoulders. It 
remained to choose a beast of burden. Now, a horse is 
a fine lady among animals, flighty, timid, delicate in eating, 
of tender health; he is too valuable and too restive to be 
left alone, so that you are chained to your brute as to a 
fellow galley slave; a dangerous road puts him out of his 
wits; in short, he’s an uncertain and exacting ally, and 
adds thirtyfold to the troubles of the voyager. What I 
required was something cheap and small and hardy, and 
of a stolid and peaceful temper; and all these requisites 
pointed to a donkey. 

There dwelt an old man in Monastier, of rather unsound 
intellect according to some, much followed by street boys. 


172 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


and known to fame as Father Adam. Father Adam had 
a cart, and to draw the cart a diminutive she-ass, not much 
bigger than a dog, the color of a mouse, with a kindly eye 
and a determined underjaw. There was something neat 
and high-bred, a quakerish elegance, about the rogue 
that hit my fancy on the spot. Our first interview was 
in Monas tier market place. To prove her good temper, 
one child after another was set upon her back to ride, and 
one after another went head over heels into the air; 
until a want of confidence began to reign in youthful 
bosoms, and the experiment was discontinued from a 
dearth of subjects. I was already backed by a deputa¬ 
tion of my friends; but as if this were not enough, all 
the buyers and sellers came round and helped me in the 
bargain; and the ass and I and Father Adam were the 
center of a hubbub for near half an hour. At length she 
passed into my service for the consideration of sixty-five 
francs and a glass of brandy. The sack had already cost 
eighty francs and two glasses of beer; so that Modestine, 
as I instantly baptized her, was upon all accounts the 
cheaper article. Indeed, that was as it should be; for 
she was only an appurtenance of my mattress, or self¬ 
acting bedstead on four castors. 

I had a last interview with Father Adam in a billiard 
room at the witching hour of dawn, when I administered 
the brandy. He professed himself greatly touched by the 
separation, and declared he had often bought white bread 
for the donkey when he had been content with black bread 
for himself; but this, according to the best authorities, 
must have been a flight of fancy. He had a name in the 
village for brutally misusing the ass ; yet it is certain that 


VELAY 


173 


he shed a tear, and the tear made a clean mark down one 
cheek. 

By the advice of a fallacious local saddler, a leather 
pad was made for me with rings to fasten on my bundle; 
and I thoughtfully completed my kit and arranged 
my toilet. By way of armory and utensils, I took a 
revolver, a little spirit lamp and pan, a lantern and some 
halfpenny candles, a jackknife and a large leather flask. 
The main cargo consisted of two entire changes of warm 
clothing — besides my traveling wear of country vel¬ 
veteen, pilot coat, and knitted spencer — some books, and 
my railway rug, which, being also in the form of a bag, 
made me a double castle for cold nights. The permanent 
larder was represented by cakes of chocolate and tins of 
Bologna sausage. All this, except what I carried about 
my person, was easily stowed into the sheepskin bag; 
and by good fortune I threw in my empty knapsack, 
rather for convenience of carriage than from any thought 
that I should want it on my journey. For more imme¬ 
diate needs, I took a leg of cold mutton, a bottle of Beau- 
jolais, an empty bottle to carry milk, an egg beater, and 
a considerable quantity of black bread and white, like 
Father Adam, for myself and donkey, only in my scheme 
of things the destinations were reversed. 

Monastrians, of all shades of thought in politics, had 
agreed in threatening me with many ludicrous misadven¬ 
tures and with sudden death in many surprising forms. 
Cold, wolves, robbers, above all the nocturnal practical 
joker were daily and eloquently forced on my attention. 
Yet in these vaticinations, the true, patent danger was 
left out. Like Christian, it was from my pack I suffered 


174 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


by the way. Before telling my own mishaps, let me, in 
two words, relate the lesson of my experience. If the 
pack is well strapped at the ends, and hung at full length 
— not doubled, for your life — across the packsaddle 
the traveler is safe. The saddle will certainly not fit, 
such is the imperfection of our transitory life; it will as¬ 
suredly topple and tend to overset; but there are stones 
on every roadside, and a man soon learns the art of cor¬ 
recting any tendency to overbalance with a well-adjusted 
stone. 

On the day of my departure I was up a little after five; 
by six, we began to load the donkey; and ten minutes 
after, my hopes were in the dust. The pad would not 
stay on Modestine’s back for half a moment. I returned 
it to its maker, with whom I had so contumelious a pas¬ 
sage that the street outside was crowded from wall to wall 
with gossips looking on and listening. The pad changed 
hands with much vivacity; perhaps it would be more 
descriptive to say that we threw it at each other’s heads; 
and, at any rate, we were very warm and unfriendly, and 
spoke with a deal of freedom. 

I had a common donkey packsaddle — a barde, as 
they call it — fitted upon Modestine; and once more 
loaded her with my effects. The double sack, my pilot 
coat (for it was warm, and I was to walk in my waist¬ 
coat), a great bar of black bread, and an open basket con¬ 
taining the white bread, the mutton, and the bottles, were 
all corded together in a very elaborate system of knots, 
and I looked on the result with fatuous content. In such 
a monstrous deck cargo, all poised above the donkey’s 
shoulders, with nothing below to balance, on a brand-new 


VELAY 


175 


packsaddle that had not yet been worn to fit the animal, 
and fastened with brand-new girths that might be ex¬ 
pected to stretch and slacken by the way, even a very care¬ 
less traveler should have seen disaster brewing. That 
elaborate system of knots, again, was the work of too many 
sympathizers to be very artfully designed. It is true they 
tightened the cords with a will; as many as three at a 
time would have a foot against Modestine’s quarters, 
and be hauling with clenched teeth; but I learned after¬ 
wards that one thoughtful person, without any exercise 
of force, can make a more solid job than half a dozen 
heated and enthusiastic grooms. I was then but a novice; 
even after the misadventure of the pad nothing could dis¬ 
turb my security, and I went forth from the stable door 
as an ox goeth to the slaughter. 

















THE GREEN DONKEY DRIVER 

The bell of Monas tier was just striking nine as I got 
quit of these preliminary troubles and descended the hill 
through the common. As long as I was within sight of 
the windows, a secret shame and the fear of some laugh¬ 
able defeat withheld me from tampering with Modestine. 
She tripped along upon her four small hoofs with a sober 
daintiness of gait; from time to time she shook her ears 
or her tail; and she looked so small under the bundle 
that my mind misgave me. We got across the ford with¬ 
out difficulty — there was no doubt about the matter, 
she was docility itself — and once on the other bank, 
where the road begins to mount through pine woods, I 
took in my right hand the unhallowed staff, and with a 
quaking spirit applied it to the donkey. Modestine 
brisked up her pace for perhaps three steps, and then 
relapsed into her former minuet. Another application had 
the same effect, and so with the third. I am worthy the 
name of an Englishman, and it goes against my conscience 
to lay my hand rudely on a female. I desisted, and looked 
her all over from head to foot; the poor brute’s knees 
were trembling and her breathing was distressed; it was 
plain that she could go no faster on a hill. God forbid, 
thought I, that I should brutalize this innocent creature; 
let her go at her own pace, and let me patiently follow. 

What that pace was, there is no word mean enough to 
177 


178 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


describe; it was something as much slower than a walk 
as a walk is slower than a run; it kept me hanging on each 
foot for an incredible length of time; in five minutes it 
exhausted the spirit and set up a fever in all the muscles 
of the leg. And yet I had to keep close at hand and meas¬ 
ure my advance exactly upon hers; for if I dropped a 
few yards into the rear, or went on a few yards ahead, 
Modestine came instantly to a halt and began to browse. 
The thought that this was to last from here to Alais nearly 
broke my heart. Of all conceivable journeys, this prom¬ 
ised to be the most tedious. I tried to tell myself it was 
a lovely day; I tried to charm my foreboding spirit with 
tobacco; but I had a vision ever present to me of the long, 
long roads, up hill and down dale, and a pair of figures ever 
infinitesimally moving, foot by foot, a yard to the minute, 
and, like things enchanted in a nightmare, approaching 
no nearer to the goal. 

In the meantime there came up behind us a tall peasant, 
perhaps forty years of age, of an ironical snuffy counte¬ 
nance, and arrayed in the green tail coat of the country. 
He overtook us hand over hand, and stopped to consider 
our pitiful advance. 

“ Your donkey,” says he, “ is very old ? ” 

I told him, I believed not. 

Then, he supposed, we had come far. 

I told him, we had but newly left Monastier. 

“Et vons marchez comme ga!” cried he; and throwing 
back his head, he laughed long and heartily. I watched 
him, half prepared to feel offended, until he had satisfied 
his mirth; and then, “You must have no pity on these 
animals/’ said he ; and, plucking a switch out of a thicket, 


VELAY 


179 


he began to lace Modes tine about the sternworks, utter¬ 
ing a cry. The rogue pricked up her ears and broke into 
a good round pace, which she kept up without flagging, 
and without exhibiting the least symptom of distress, as 
long as the peasant kept beside us. Her former panting 
and shaking had been, I regret to say, a piece of comedy. 

My dens ex machina, before he left me, supplied some 
excellent, if inhumane, advice; presented me with the 
switch, which he declared she would feel more tenderly 
than my cane; and finally taught me the true cry or ma¬ 
sonic word of donkey drivers, “ Proot ! ” All the time, 
he regarded me with a comical incredulous air, which was 
embarrassing to confront; and smiled over my donkey 
driving, as I might have smiled over his orthography, or 
his green tail coat. But it was not my turn for the mo¬ 
ment. 

I was proud of my new lore, and thought I had learned 
the art to perfection. And certainly Modestine did 
wonders for the rest of the forenoon, and I had a breath¬ 
ing space to look about me. It was Sabbath; the moun¬ 
tain fields were all vacant in the sunshine; and as we 
came down through St. Martin de Frugeres, the church 
was crowded to the door, there were people kneeling with¬ 
out upon the steps, and the sound of the priest’s chant¬ 
ing came forth out of the dim interior. It gave me a home 
feeling on the spot; for I am a countryman of the Sab¬ 
bath, so to speak, and all Sabbath observances, like a 
Scotch accent, strike in me mixed feelings, grateful and 
the reverse. It is only a traveler, hurrying by like a per¬ 
son from another planet, who can rightly enjoy the peace 
and beauty of the great ascetic feast. The sight of the 



The Whole Hypothec Groveled in the Dust 











VELAY 


181 


resting country does his spirit good. There is something 
better than music in the wide unusual silence; and it dis¬ 
poses him to amiable thoughts, like the sound of a little 
river or the warmth of sunlight. 

In this pleasant humor I came down the hill to where 
Goudet stands in the green end of a valley, with Chateau 
Beaufort opposite upon a rocky steep, and the stream, 
as clear as crystal, lying in a deep pool between them. 
Above and below, you may hear it wimpling over the 
stones, an amiable stripling of' a river, which it seems 
absurd to call the Loire. On all sides, Goudet is shut in 
by mountains; rocky footpaths, practicable at best for 
donkeys, join it to the outer world of France; and the 
men and women drink and swear, in their green corner, or 
look up at the snow-clad peaks in winter from the thresh¬ 
old of their homes, in an isolation, you would think, like 
that of Homer’s Cyclops. But it is not so; the postman 
reaches Goudet with the letter bag; the aspiring youth of 
Goudet are within a day’s walk of the railway at Le Puy; 
and here in the inn you may find an engraved portrait of 
the host’s nephew, Regis Senac, “Professor of Fencing 
and Champion of the two Americas,” a distinction gained 
by him, along with the sum of five hundred dollars, at Tam¬ 
many Hall, New York, on the 10th of April, 1876. 

I hurried over my midday meal, and was early forth 
again. But, alas, as we climbed the interminable hill upon 
the other side, “Proot!” seemed to have lost its virtue. 
I prooted like a lion, I prooted mellifluously like a suck¬ 
ing dove ; but Modestine would be neither softened nor 
intimidated. She held doggedly to her pace; nothing 
but a blow would move her, and that only for a second. 


182 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


I must follow at her heels, incessantly belaboring. A 
moment’s pause in this ignoble toil, and she relapsed into 
her own private gait. I think I never heard of any one 
in as mean a situation. I must reach the lake of Bouchet, 
where I meant to camp, before sundown, and, to have 
even a hope of this, I must instantly maltreat this uncom¬ 
plaining animal. The sound of my own blows sickened 
me. Once, when I looked at her, she had a faint resem¬ 
blance to a lady of my acquaintance who formerly loaded 
me with kindness; and this increased my horror of my 
cruelty. 

To make matters worse, we encountered another 
donkey, ranging at will upon the roadside; and this 
other donkey chanced to be a gentleman. He and 
Modestine met nickering for joy, and I had to separate 
the pair and beat down their young romance with a re¬ 
newed and feverish bastinado. If the other donkey had 
had the heart of a male under his hide, he would have fallen 
upon me tooth and hoof; and this was a kind of conso¬ 
lation — he was plainly unworthy of Modestine’s affec¬ 
tion. But the incident saddened me, as did everything 
that spoke of my donkey’s sex. 

It was blazing hot up the valley, windless, with vehe¬ 
ment sun upon my shoulders; and I had to labor so 
consistently with my stick that the sweat ran into my 
eyes. Every five minutes, too, the pack, the basket, and 
the pilot coat would take an ugly slew to one side or the 
other; and I had to stop Modestine, just when I had got 
her to a tolerable pace of about two miles an hour, to tug, 
push, shoulder, and readjust the load. And at last, in 
the village of Ussel, saddle and all, the whole hypothec 


VELAY 


183 


turned round and groveled in the dust below the donkey’s 
belly. She, none better pleased, incontinently drew up 
and seemed to smile; and a party of one man, two women, 
and two children came up, and, standing round me in a 
half circle, encouraged her by their example. 

I had the devil’s own trouble to get the thing righted; 
and the instant I had done so, without hesitation, it 
toppled and fell down upon the other side. Judge if 1 
was hot! And yet not a hand was offered to assist me. 
The man, indeed, told me I ought to have a package of a 
different shape. I suggested, if he knew nothing better 
to the point in my predicament, he might hold his tongue. 
And the good-natured dog agreed with me smilingly. It 
was the most despicable fix. I must plainly content my¬ 
self with the pack for Modestine, and take the following 
items for my own share of the portage: a cane, a quart 
flask, a pilot jacket heavily weighted in the pockets, two 
pounds of black bread, and an open basket full of meats 
and bottles. I believe I may say I am not devoid of great¬ 
ness of soul; for I did not recoil from this infamous 
burden. I disposed it, Heaven knows how, so as to be 
mildly portable, and then proceeded to steer Modestine 
through the village. She tried, as was indeed her invari¬ 
able habit, to enter every house and every courtyard in 
the whole length; and, encumbered as I was, without a 
hand to help myself, no words can render an idea of my 
difficulties. A priest, with six or seven others, was ex¬ 
amining a church in process of repair, and he and his 
acolytes laughed loudly as they saw my plight. I remem¬ 
bered having laughed myself when I had seen good men 
struggling with adversity in the person of a jackass, and 


184 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


the recollection filled me with penitence. That was in 
my old light days, before this trouble came upon me. God 
knows at least that I shall never laugh again, thought I. 
But O, what a cruel thing is a farce to those engaged in it! 

A little out of the village, Modestine, filled with the 
demon, set her heart upon a byroad, and positively re¬ 
fused to leave it. I dropped all my bundles, and, I am 
ashamed to say, struck the poor sinner twice across the 
face. It was pitiful to see her lift up her head with shut 
eyes, as if waiting for another blow. I came very near 
crying; but I did a wiser thing than that, and sat squarely 
down by the roadside to consider my situation under the 
cheerful influence of tobacco and a nip of brandy. Mo¬ 
destine, in the meanwhile, munched some black bread 
with a contrite hypocritical air. It was plain that I 
must make a sacrifice to the gods of shipwreck. I threw 
away the empty bottle destined to carry milk; I threw 
away my own white bread, and, disdaining to act by 
general average, kept the black bread for Modestine; 
lastly, I threw away the cold leg of mutton and the egg- 
whisk, although this last was dear to my heart. Thus I 
found room for everything in the basket, and even stowed 
the boating coat on the top. By means of an end of cord 
I slung it under one arm; and although the cord cut my 
shoulder, and the jacket hung almost to the ground, it 
was with a heart greatly lightened that I set forth again. 

I had now an arm free to thrash Modestine, and cruelly 
I chastised her. If I were to reach the lakeside before 
dark, she must bestir her little shanks to some tune. Al¬ 
ready the sun had gone down into a windy-looking mist; 
and although there were still a few streaks of gold far off 


VELAY 


185 


to the east on the hills and the black fir woods, all was cold 
and grey about our onward path. An infinity of little 
country byroads led hither and thither among the fields. 
It was the most pointless labyrinth. I could see my des¬ 
tination overhead, or rather the peak that dominates it; 
but choose as I pleased, the roads always ended by turn¬ 
ing away from it, and sneaking back towards the valley, 
or northward along the margin of the hills. The failing 
light, the waning color, the naked, unhomely, stony coun¬ 
try through which I was traveling, threw me into some 
despondency. I promise you, the stick was not idle; I 
think every decent step that Modestine took must have 
cost me at least two emphatic blows. There was not an¬ 
other sound in the neighborhood but that of my unweary¬ 
ing bastinado. 

Suddenly, in the midst of my toils, the load once more 
bit the dust, and, as by enchantment, all the cords were 
simultaneously loosened, and the road scattered with my 
dear possessions. The packing was to begin again from 
the beginning; and as I had to invent a new and better 
system, I do not doubt but I lost half an hour. It began 
to be dusk in earnest as I reached a wilderness of turf and 
stones. It had the air of being a road which should lead 
everywhere at the same time; and I was falling into some¬ 
thing not unlike despair when I saw two figures stalking 
towards me over the stones. They walked one behind 
the other like tramps, but their pace was remarkable. The 
son led the way, a tall, ill-made, somber, Scotch-looking 
man; the mother followed, all in her Sunday’s best, with 
an elegantly embroidered ribbon to her cap, and a new 
felt hat atop, and proffering, as she strode along with 


186 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


kilted petticoats, a string of obscene and blasphemous 
oaths. 

I hailed the son and asked him my direction. He 
pointed loosely west and northwest, muttered an in¬ 
audible comment, and, without slacking his pace for an 
instant, stalked on, as he was going, right athwart my 
path. The mother followed without so much as raising 
her head. I shouted and shouted after them, but they 
continued to scale the hillside, and turned a deaf ear to 
my outcries. At last, leaving Modes tine by herself, I 
was constrained to run after them, hailing the while. 
They stopped as I drew near, the mother still cursing; 
and I could see she was a handsome, motherly, respectable¬ 
looking woman. The son once more answered me roughly 
and inaudibly, and was for setting out again. But this 
time I simply collared the mother, who was nearest me, 
and, apologizing for my violence, declared that I could 
not let them go until they had put me on my road. They 
were neither of them offended — rather mollified than 
otherwise; told me I had only to follow them; and then 
the mother asked me what I wanted by the lake at such 
an hour. I replied, in the Scotch manner, by inquiring 
if she had far to go herself. She told me, with another 
oath, that she had an hour and a half’s road before her. 
And then, without salutation, the pair strode forward 
again up the hillside in the gathering dusk. 

I returned for Modestine, pushed her briskly forward, 
and, after a sharp ascent of twenty minutes, reached the 
edge of a plateau. The view, looking back on my day’s 
journey, was both wild and sad. Mount Mezenc and 
the peaks beyond St. Julien stood out in trenchant gloom 


VELAY 


187 


against a cold glitter in the east; and the intervening 
field of hills had fallen together into one broad wash of 
shadow, except here and there the outline of a wooded 
sugar loaf in black, here and there a white irregular patch 
to represent a cultivated farm, and here and there a blot 
where the Loire, the Gazeille, or the Lausonne wandered 
in a gorge. 

Soon we were on a highroad, and surprise seized on 
my mind as I beheld a village of some magnitude close 
at hand ; for I had been told that the neighborhood of the 
lake was uninhabited except by trout. The road smoked 
in the twilight with children driving home cattle from the 
fields; and a pair of mounted stride-legged women, hat 
and cap and all, dashed past me at a hammering trot from 
the canton where they had been to church and market. 
I asked one of the children where I was. At Bouchet St. 
Nicolas, he told me. Thither, about a mile south of my 
destination, and on the other side of a respectable sum¬ 
mit, had these confused roads and treacherous peasantry 
conducted me. My shoulder was cut, so that it hurt 
sharply; my arm ached like toothache from perpetual 
beating; I gave up the lake and my design to camp, and 
asked for the auberge. 


I HAVE A GOAD 


The auberge of Bouchet St. Nicolas was among the 
least pretentious I have ever visited ; but I saw many more 
of the like upon my journey. Indeed, it was typical of 
these French highlands. Imagine a cottage of two 
stories, with a bench before the door; the stable and 
kitchen in a suite, so that Modestine and I could hear 
each other dining; furniture of the plainest, earthen 
floors, a single bedchamber for travelers, and that 
without any convenience but beds. In the kitchen cook¬ 
ing. and eating go forward side by side, and the family 
sleep at night. Any one who has a fancy to wash must 
do so in public at the common table. The food is some¬ 
times spare; hard fish and omelette have been my por¬ 
tion more than once; the wine is of the smallest, the 
brandy abominable to man; and the visit of a fat sow 
grunting under the table and rubbing against your legs, 
is no impossible accompaniment to dinner. 

But the people of the inn, in nine cases out of ten, show 
themselves friendly and considerate. As soon as you 
cross the doors you cease to be a stranger; and although 
this peasantry are rude and forbidding on the highway, 
they show a tincture of kind breeding when you share 
their hearth. At Bouchet, for instance, I uncorked my 
bottle of Beaujolais, and asked the host to join me. He 
would take but little. 


188 


VELAY 


189 


“ I am an amateur of such wine, do you see ? ” he said, 
“and I am capable of leaving you not enough.” 

In these hedge-inns the traveler is expected to eat with 
his own knife; unless he ask, no other will be supplied; 
with a glass, a whang of bread, and an iron fork, the table 
is completely laid. My knife was cordially admired by 
the landlord of Bouchet, and the spring filled him with 
wonder. 

“I should never have guessed that,” he said. “I 
would bet,” he added, weighing it in his hand, “that this 
cost you not less than five francs.” 

When I told him it had cost me twenty, his jaw dropped. 

He was a mild, handsome, sensible, friendly old man, 
astonishingly ignorant. His wife, who was not so pleasant 
in her manners, knew how to read, although I do not sup¬ 
pose she ever did so. She had a share of brains and spoke 
with a cutting emphasis, like one who ruled the roast. 

“ My man knows nothing,” she said, with an angry nod; 
“he is like the beasts.” 

And the old gentleman signified acquiescence with his 
head. There was no contempt on her part, and no shame 
on his; the facts were accepted loyally, and no more 
about the matter. 

I was tightly cross-examined about my journey; and 
the lady understood in a moment, and sketched out 
what I should put into my book when I got home. 
“ Whether people harvest or not in such or such a place; 
if there were forests; studies of manners; what, for 
example, I and the master of the house say to you; the 
beauties of Nature, and all that.” And she interrogated 
me with a look. 


190 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


“It is just that/’ said I. 

“You see/’ she added to her husband, “I understood 
that.” 

They were both much interested by the story of my 
misadventures. 

“In the morning,” said the husband, “I will make you 
something better than your cane. Such a beast as that 
feels nothing; it is in the proverb — dur comme un dne; 
you might beat her insensible with a cudgel, and yet you 
would arrive nowhere.” 

Something better! I little knew what he was offering. 

The sleeping room was furnished with two beds. I 
had one; and I will own I was a little abashed to find a 
young man and his wife and child in the act of mounting 
into the other. This was my first experience of the Sort; 
and if I am always to feel equally silly and extraneous, I 
pray God it be my last as well. I kept my eyes to my¬ 
self, and know nothing of the woman except that she had 
beautiful arms, and seemed no whit abashed by my 
appearance. As a matter of fact, the situation was more 
trying to me than to the pair. A pair keep each other in 
countenance; it is the single gentleman who has to blush. 
But I could not help attributing my sentiments to the 
husband, and sought to conciliate his tolerance with a 
cup of brandy from my flask. He told me that he was a 
cooper of Alais traveling to St. Etienne in search of 
work, and that in his spare moments he followed the fatal 
calling of a maker of matches. Me he readily enough 
divined to be a brandy merchant. 

I was up first in the morning (Monday, September 23), 
and hastened my toilet guiltily, so as to leave a clear 


VELAY 


191 


field for madam, the cooper’s wife. I drank a bowl of 
milk, and set off to explore the neighborhood of Bouchet. 
It was perishing cold, a grey, windy, wintry morning; 
misty clouds flew fast and low; the wind piped over the 
naked platform; and the only speck of color was away 
behind Mount Mezenc and the eastern hills, where the 
sky still wore the orange of the dawn. 

It was five in the morning, and four thousand feet 
above the sea; and I had to bury my hands in my pockets 
and trot. People were trooping out to the labors of the 
field by twos and threes, and all turned round to stare 
upon the stranger. I had seen them coming back last 
night, I saw them going afield again; and there was the 
life of Bouchet in a nutshell. 

When I came back to the inn for a bit of breakfast the 
landlady was in the kitchen combing out her daughter’s 
hair; and I made her my compliments upon its beauty. 

“O no,” said the mother; “it is not so beautiful as it 
ought to be. Look, it is too fine.” 

Thus does a wise peasantry console itself under adverse 
physical circumstances, and, by a startling democratic 
process, the defects of the majority decide the type of 
beauty. 

“And where,” said I, “is monsieur?” 

“The master of the house is upstairs,” she answered, 
“making you a goad.” 

Blessed be the man who invented goads! Blessed the 
innkeeper of Bouchet St. Nicolas, who introduced me 
to their use! This plain wand, with an eighth of an inch 
of pin, was indeed a scepter when he put it in my hands. 
Thenceforward Modestine was my slave. A prick, and 


192 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


she passed the most inviting stable door. A prick, and 
she broke forth into a gallant little trotlet that devoured 
the miles. It was not a remarkable speed, when all was 
said; and we took four hours to cover ten miles at the 
best of it. But what a heavenly change since yesterday! 
No more wielding of the ugly cudgel; no more flailing 
with an aching arm; no more broadsword exercise, but a 
discreet and gentlemanly fence. And what although now 
and then a drop of blood should appear on Modestine’s 
mouse^colored wedge-like rump ? I should have pre¬ 
ferred it otherwise, indeed; but yesterday’s exploits had 
purged my heart of all humanity. The perverse little 
devil, since she would not be taken with kindness, must 
even go with pricking. 

It was bleak and bitter cold, and, except a cavalcade 
of stride-legged ladies and a pair of postrunners, the road 
was dead solitary all the way to Pradelles. I scarce re¬ 
member an incident but one. A handsome foal with a 
bell about his neck came charging up to us upon a stretch 
of common, sniffed the air martially as one about to do 
great deeds, and, suddenly thinking otherwise in his 
green young heart, put about and galloped off as he had 
come, the bell tinkling in the wind. For a long while 
afterwards I saw his noble attitude as he drew up, and 
heard the note of his bell; and when I struck the high¬ 
road, the song of the telegraph wires seemed to continue 
the same music. 

Pradelles stands on a hillside, high above the Allier, 
surrounded by rich meadows. They were cutting after- 
math on all sides, which gave the neighborhood, this 
gusty autumn morning, an untimely smell of hay. On 


VELAY 


193 


the opposite bank of the Allier the land kept mounting 
for miles to the horizon: a tanned and sallow autumn 
landscape, with black blots of fir wood and white roads 
wandering through the hills. Over all this the clouds 
shed a uniform and purplish shadow, sad and somewhat 
menacing, exaggerating height and distance, and throw¬ 
ing into still higher relief the twisted ribbons of the high¬ 
way. It was a cheerless prospect, but one stimulating to 
a traveler. For I was now upon the limit of Velay, and 
all that I beheld lay in another county — wild Gevaudan, 
mountainous, uncultivated, and but recently deforested 
from terror of the wolves. 

Wolves, alas, like bandits, seem to flee the traveler’s 
advance; and you may trudge through all our comfort¬ 
able Europe, and not meet with an adventure worth the 
name. But here, if anywhere, a man was on the fron¬ 
tiers of hope. For this was the land of the ever-memora- 
ble Beast, the Napoleon Bonaparte of wolves. What a 
career was his! He lived ten months at free quarters in 
Gevaudan and Vivarais; he ate women and children and 
“shepherdesses celebrated for their beauty”; he pursued 
armed horsemen; he has been seen at broad noonday 
chasing a post chaise and outrider along the king’s high¬ 
road, and chaise and outrider fleeing before him at the 
gallop. He was placarded like a political offender, and 
ten thousand francs were offered for his head. And yet, 
when he was shot and sent to Versailles, behold! a com¬ 
mon wolf, and even small for that. “Though I could 
reach from pole to pole,” sang Alexander Pope; the little 
corporal shook Europe; and if all wolves had been as 
this wolf, they would have changed the history of man. 


194 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


M. Elie Berthet has made him the hero of a novel, which 
I have read, and do not wish to read again. 

I hurried over my lunch, and was proof against the 
landlady’s desire that I should visit our Lady of Pradelles, 
“who performed many miracles, although she was of 
wood ”; and before three quarters of an hour I was goad¬ 
ing Modestine down the steep descent that leads to Lan- 
gogne on the Allier. On both sides of the road, in big 
dusty fields, farmers were preparing for next spring. 
Every fifty yards a yoke of great-necked stolid oxen were 
patiently haling at the plough. I saw one of these mild, 
formidable servants of the glebe, who took a sudden in¬ 
terest in Modestine and me. The furrow down which 
he was journeying lay at an angle to the road, and his 
head was solidly fixed to the yoke like those of caryatides 
below a ponderous cornice; but he screwed round his big 
honest eyes and followed us with a ruminating look, until 
his master bade him turn the plough and proceed to re¬ 
ascend the field. From all these furrowing ploughshares, 
from the feet of oxen, from a laborer here and there who 
was breaking the dry clods with a hoe, the wind carried 
away a thin dust like so much smoke. It was a fine, busy, 
breathing, rustic landscape; and as I continued to de¬ 
scend, the highlands of Gevaudan kept mounting in front 
of me against the sky. 

I had crossed the Loire the day before; now I was to 
cross the Allier; so near are these two confluents in their 
youth. Just at the bridge of Langogne, as the long-prom¬ 
ised rain was beginning to fall, a lassie of some seven or 
eight addressed me in the sacramental phrase, “ D’oust que 
vous venez f” She did it with so high an air that she set 


VELAY 


195 


me laughing; and this cut her to the quick. She was 
evidently one who reckoned on respect, and stood look¬ 
ing after me in silent dudgeon, as I crossed the bridge and 
entered the county of Gevaudan. 


y'Pradtlles 


Langoqi 

(jtVAUmWf VIVARAIS 


nu 3 ilhacj$t ou 3 l, l} 




Lt Chylardl’EvccjLicfy^'J 

Tcnstof 
‘Mercoire £ 


^\* oB »Steuen\on?r track 

shewn thus 

9Honfagne34^^ !’ S ^ Cin1 ^ C .. 

? punts f 


GEVAUDAN 

AND 

VIVA RAIS 


PuMjBnkh 

‘M'.Loiirt 












UPPER GEVAUDAN 

“ The way also here was very weari¬ 
some through dirt and slabbi- 
ness; nor was there on all this 
ground so much as one inn or 
victualling-house wherein to re¬ 
fresh the feebler sort.” — Pil¬ 
grim’s Progress. 

A CAMP IN THE DARK 

The next day (Tuesday, September 24), it was two 
o’clock in the afternoon before I got my journal written 
up and my knapsack repaired, for I was determined to 
carry my knapsack in the future and have no more ado 
with baskets; and half an hour afterwards I set out for 
Le Cheylard l’Eveque, a place on the borders of the forest 
of Mercoire. A man, I was told, should walk there in an 
hour and a half; and I thought it scarce too ambitious 
to suppose that a man encumbered with a donkey might 
cover the same distance in four hours. 

All the way up the long hill from Langogne it rained 
and hailed alternately; the wind kept freshening steadily, 
although slowly; plentiful hurrying clouds — some drag¬ 
ging veils of straight rainshower, others massed and 
luminous, as though promising snow — careered out of 
the north and followed me along the way. I was soon 
out of the cultivated basin of the Allier, and away from 
the ploughing oxen, and such like sights of the country. 

197 


198 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


Moor, Leathery marsh, tracts of rock and pines, woods of 
birch all jeweled with the autumn yellow, here and there 
a few naked cottages and bleak fields, — these were the 
characters of the country. Hill and valley followed valley 
and hill; the little green and stony cattle tracks wandered 
in and out of one another, split into three or four, died 
away in marshy hollows, and began again sporadically on 
hillsides or at the borders of a wood. 

There was no direct road to Cheylard, and it was no 
easy affair to make a passage in this uneven country and 
through this intermittent labyrinth of tracks. It must 
have been about four when I struck Sagnerousse, arid 
went on my way rejoicing in a sure point of departure. 
Two hours afterwards, the dusk rapidly falling, in a lull 
of the wind, I issued from a fir wood where I had long 
been wandering, and found, not the looked-for village, 
but another marish bottom among rough-and-tumble 
hills. For some time past I had heard the ringing of 
cattle bells ahead; and now, as I came out of the skirts 
of the wood, I saw near upon a dozen cows and perhaps 
as many more black figures, which I conjectured to be 
children, although the mist had almost unrecognizably 
exaggerated their forms. These were all silently follow¬ 
ing each other round and round in a circle, now taking 
hands, now breaking up with chains and reverences. A 
dance of children appeals to very innocent and lively 
thoughts; but, at nightfall on the marshes, the thing was 
eerie and fantastic to behold. Even I, who am well enough 
read in Herbert Spencer, felt a sort of silence fall for an 
instant on my mind. The next, I was pricking Modes- 
tine forward, and guiding her like an unruly ship through 


UPPER GEVAUDAN 


199 


the open. In a path, she went doggedly ahead of her own 
accord, as before a fair wind; but once on the turf or 
among heather, and the brute became demented. The 
tendency of lost travelers to go round in a circle was de¬ 
veloped in her to the degree of passion, and it took all the 
steering I had in me to keep even a decently straight course 
through a single field. 

While I was thus desperately tacking through the bog, 
children and cattle began to disperse, until only a pair of 
girls remained behind. From these I sought direction on 
my path. The peasantry in general were but little dis¬ 
posed to counsel a wayfarer. One old devil simply retired 
into his house, and barricaded the door on my approach; 
and I might beat and shout myself hoarse, he turned a 
deaf ear. Another, having given me a direction which, 
as I found afterwards, I had misunderstood, complacently 
watched me going wrong without adding a sign. He did 
not care a stalk of parsley if I wandered all night upon 
the hills! As for these two girls, they were a pair of im¬ 
pudent sly sluts, with not a thought but mischief. One 
put out her tongue at me, the other bade me follow the 
cows; and they both giggled and jogged each other’s 
elbows. The Beast of Gevaudan ate about a hundred 
children of this district; I began to think of him with 
sympathy. 

Leaving the girls, I pushed on through the bog, and 
got into another wood and upon a well-marked road. It 
grew darker and darker. Modestine, suddenly beginning 
to smell mischief, bettered the pace of her own accord, 
and from that time forward gave me no trouble. It was 
the first sign of intelligence I had occasion to remark in 


200 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


her. At the same time, the wind freshened into half a 
gale, and another heavy discharge of rain came flying up 
out of the north. At the other side of the wood I 
sighted some red windows in the dusk. This was the 
hamlet of Fouzilhic; three houses on a hillside, near a 
wood of birches. Here I found a delightful old man, who 
came a little way with me in the rain to put me safely on 
the road for Cheylard. He would hear of no reward; 
but shook his hands above his head almost as if in menace, 
and refused volubly and shrilly, in unmitigated patois . 

All seemed right at last. My thoughts began to turn 
upon dinner and a fireside, and my heart was agreeably 
softened in my bosom. Alas, and I was on the brink of 
new and greater miseries! Suddenly, at a single swoop, 
the night fell. I have been abroad in many a black night, 
but never in a blacker. A glimmer of rocks, a glimmer of 
the track where it was well beaten, a certain fleecy den¬ 
sity, or night within night, for a tree, — this was all that 
I could discriminate. The sky was simply darkness over¬ 
head ; even the flying clouds pursued their way invisibly 
to human eyesight. I could not distinguish my hand at 
arm’s length from the track, nor my goad, at the same 
distance, from the meadows or the sky. 

Soon the road that I was following split, after the 
fashion of the country, into three or four in a piece of 
rocky meadow. Since Modestine had shown such a fancy 
for beaten roads, I tried her instinct in this predicament. 
But the instinct of an ass is what might be expected from 
the name; in half a minute she was clambering round and 
round among some boulders, as lost a donkey as you would 
wish to see, I should have camped long before had I been 


UPPER GEVAUDAN 


201 


properly provided; but as this was to be so short a stage, 
I had brought no wine, no bread for myself, and a little 
over a pound for my lady friend. Add to this, that I 
and Modestine were both handsomely wetted by the 
showers. But now, if I could have found some water, 
I should have camped at once in spite of all. Water, how¬ 
ever, being entirely absent, except in the form of rain, I 
determined to return to Fouzilhic, and ask a guide a little 
farther on my way — “ a little farther lend thy guiding 
hand.” 

The thing was easy to decide, hard to accomplish. In 
this sensible roaring blackness I was sure of nothing but 
the direction of the wind. To this I set my face; the 
road had disappeared, and I went across country, now in 
marshy opens, now baffled by walls unscalable to Modes¬ 
tine, until I came once more in sight of some red windows. 
This time they were differently disposed. It was not 
Fouzilhic, but Fouzilhac, a hamlet little distant from the 
other in space, but worlds away in the spirit of its inhabit¬ 
ants. I tied Modestine to a gate, and groped forward, 
stumbling among rocks, plunging mid-leg in bog, until I 
gained the entrance of the village. In the first lighted 
house there was a woman who would not open to me. 
She could do nothing, she cried to me through the door, 
being alone and lame; but if I would apply at the next 
house, there was a man who could help me if he had a 
mind. 

They came to the next door in force, a man, two women, 
and a girl, and brought a pair of lanterns to examine the 
wayfarer. The man was not ill-looking, but had a shifty 
smile. He leaned against the doorpost, and heard me 


202 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


state my case. All I asked was a guide as far as Chey- 
lard. 

“C’est que, voyez-vous, ilfait noir,” said he. 

I told him that was just my reason for requiring help. 

“ I understand that/’ said he, looking uncomfortable; 
“mais — c’est — de la peine .” 

I was willing to pay, I said. He shook his head. I 
rose as high as ten francs; but he continued to shake his 
head. “Name your own price, then,” said I. 

“Ce n’est pas ga,” he said at length, and with evident 
difficulty; “ but I am not going to cross the door — mais 
je ne sortirai pas de la porte.” 

I grew a little warm, and asked him what he proposed 
that I should do. 

“Where are you going beyond Cheylard?” he asked 
by way of answer. 

“That is no affair of yours,” I returned, for I was not 
going to indulge his bestial curiosity; “ it changes nothing 
in my present predicament.” 

“ C’est vrai, ga,” he acknowledged, with a laugh; “ oui, 
c’est vrai. Et d’oii venez-vous ? ” 

A better man than I might have felt nettled. 

“O,” said I, “I am not going to answer any of your 
questions, so you may spare yourself the trouble of put¬ 
ting them. I am late enough already; I want help. If 
you will not guide me yourself, at least help me to find 
some one else who will.” 

“Hold on,” he cried suddenly. “Was it not you who 
passed the meadow while it was still day?” 

“Yes, yes,” said the girl, whom I had not hitherto rec¬ 
ognized ; “ it was monsieur; I told him to follow the cow.” 


UPPER GEVAUDAN 


203 


“ As for you, mademoiselle,” said I, “you are a farceuse.” 

“ And,” added the man, “ what the devil have you done 
to be still here ? ” 

What the devil, indeed! But there I was. “The 
great thing,” said I, “is to make an end of it”; and once 
more proposed that he should help me to find a guide. 

“ C’est que,” he said again, “ c’est que — il fait noir” 

“Very well,” said I; “take one of your lanterns.” 

“No,” he cried, drawing a thought backward, and again 
intrenching himself behind one of his former phrases; “ I 
will not cross the door.” 

I looked at him. I saw unaffected terror struggling 
on his face with unaffected shame; he was smiling piti¬ 
fully and wetting his lip with his tongue, like a detected 
schoolboy. I drew a brief picture of my state, and asked 
him what I was to do. 

“I*don’t know,” he said; “I will not*cross the door.” 
Here was the Beast of Gevaudan, and no mistake. 

“Sir,” said I, with my most commanding manners, 
“you are a coward.” 

And with that I turned my back upon the family party, 
who hastened to retire within their fortifications; and the 
famous door was closed again, but not till I had overheard 
the sound of laughter. Filia barbara pater barbarior. Let 
me say it in the plural: the Beasts of Gevaudan. 

The lanterns had somewhat dazzled me, and I ploughed 
distressfully among stones and rubbish heaps. All the 
other houses in the village were both dark and silent; and 
though I knocked at here and there a door, my knocking 
was unanswered. It was a bad business; I gave up Fou- 
zilhac with my curses. The rain had stopped, and the 


204 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


wind, which still kept rising, began to dry my coat and 
trousers. “Very well/’ thought I, “water or no water, 
I must camp.” But the first thing was to return to Modes- 
tine. I am pretty sure I was twenty minutes groping for 
my lady in the dark; and if it had not been for the 
unkindly services of the bog, into which I once more 
stumbled, I might have still been groping for her at the 
dawn. My next business was to gain the shelter of a 
wood, for the wind was cold as well as boisterous. How, 
in this well-wooded district, I should have been so long in 
finding one, is another of the insoluble mysteries of this 
day’s adventures; but I will take my oath that I put near 
an hour to the discovery. 

At last black trees began to show upon my left, and, 
suddenly crossing the road, made a cave of unmitigated 
blackness right in front. I call it a cave without exag¬ 
geration ; to pass below that arch of leaves was like enter¬ 
ing a dungeon. I felt about until my hand encountered 
a stout branch, and to this I tied Modestine, a haggard, 
drenched, desponding donkey. Then I lowered my pack, 
laid it along the wall on the margin of the road, and un¬ 
buckled the straps. I knew well enough where the lan¬ 
tern was; but where were the candles? I groped and 
groped among the tumbled articles, and, while I was thus 
groping, suddenly I touched the spirit lamp. Salvation! 
This would serve my turn as well. The wind roared un- 
wearyingly among the trees; I could hear the boughs 
tossing and the leaves churning through half a mile of 
forest; yet the scene of my encampment was not only as 
black as the pit, but admirably sheltered. At the second 
match the wick caught flame. The light was both livid 


UPPER GEVAUDAN 


205 


and shifting; but it cut me off from the universe, and 
doubled the darkness of the surrounding night. 

I tied Modestine more conveniently for herself, and 
broke up half the black bread for her supper, reserving the 
other half against the morning. Then I gathered what I 
should want within reach, took off my wet boots and 
gaiters, which I wrapped in my waterproof, arranged my 
knapsack for a pillow under the flap of my sleeping bag, 
insinuated my limbs into the interior, and buckled myself 
in like a bambino. I opened a tin of Bologna sausage and 
broke a cake of chocolate, and that was all I had to eat. 
It may sound offensive, but I ate them together, bite by 
bite, by way of bread and meat. All I had to wash down 
this revolting mixture was neat brandy; a revolting bev¬ 
erage in itself. But I was rare and hungry; ate well, and 
smoked one of the best cigarettes in my experience. Then 
I put a stone in my straw hat, pulled the flap of my fur 
cap over my neck and eyes, put my revolver ready to my 
hand, and snuggled well down among the sheepskins. 

I questioned at first if I were sleepy, for I felt my heart 
beating faster than usual, as if with an agreeable excite¬ 
ment to which my mind remained a stranger. But as 
soon as my eyelids touched, that subtle glue leaped be¬ 
tween them, and they would no more come separate. 

The wind among the trees was my lullaby. Some¬ 
times it sounded for minutes together with a steady even 
rush, not rising nor abating; and again it would swell 
and burst like a great crashing breaker, and the trees 
would patter me all over with big drops from the rain of 
the afternoon. Night after night, in my own bedroom 
in the country, I have given ear to this perturbing concert 


206 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


of the wind among the woods; but whether it was a dif¬ 
ference in the trees, or the lie of the ground, or because I 
was myself outside and in the midst of it, the fact remains 
that the wind sang to a different tune among these woods 
of Gevaudan. I hearkened and hearkened; and mean¬ 
while sleep took gradual possession of my body and sub¬ 
dued my thoughts and senses; but still my last waking 
effort was to listen and distinguish, and my last conscious 
state was one of wonder at the foreign clamor in my ears. 

Twice in the course of the dark hours — once when a 
stone galled me underneath the sack, and again when the 
poor patient Modestine, growing angry, pawed and 
stamped upon the road — I was recalled for a brief while 
to consciousness, and saw a star or two overhead, and the 
lacelike edge of the foliage against the sky. When I 
awoke for the third time (Wednesday, September 25), 
the world was flooded with a blue light, the mother of the 
dawn. I saw the leaves laboring in the wind and the 
ribbon of the road; and, on turning my head, there was 
Modestine tied to a beech, and standing half across the 
path in an attitude of inimitable patience. I closed my 
eyes again, and set to thinking over the experience of the 
night. I was surprised to find how easy and pleasant it 
had been, even in this tempestuous weather. The stone 
which annoyed me would not have been there, had I not 
been forced to camp blindfold in the opaque night; and 
I had felt no other inconvenience, except when my feet 
encountered the lantern or the second volume of Peyrat’s 
Pastors of the Desert among the mixed contents of my sleep¬ 
ing bag; nay more, I had felt not a touch of cold, and 
awakened with unusually lightsome and clear sensations. 


UPPER GEVAUDAN 


207 


With that, I shook myself, got once more into my 
boots and gaiters, and, breaking up the rest of the bread 
for Modestine, strolled about to see in what part of the 
world I had awakened. Ulysses, left on Ithaca, and with 
a mind unsettled by the goddess, was not more pleasantly 
astray. I have been after an adventure all my life, a pure 
dispassionate adventure, such as befell early and heroic 
voyagers; and thus to be found by morning in a random 
woodside nook in Gevaudan — not knowing north from 
south, as strange to my surroundings as the first man upon 
the earth, an inland castaway — was to find a fraction of 
my daydreams realized. I was on the skirts of a little 
wood of birch, sprinkled with a few beeches; behind, it 
adjoined another wood of fir; and in front, it broke up 
and went down in open order into a shallow and meadowy 
dale. All around there were bare hilltops, some near, 
some far away, as the perspective closed or opened, but 
none apparently much higher than the rest. The wind 
huddled the trees. The golden specks of autumn in the 
birches tossed shiveringly. Overhead the sky was full 
of strings and shreds of vapor, flying, vanishing, reappear¬ 
ing, and turning about an axis like tumblers, as the wind 
hounded them through heaven. It was wild weather and 
famishing cold. I ate some chocolate, swallowed a mouth¬ 
ful of brandy, and smoked a cigarette before the cold should 
have time to disable my fingers. And by the time I had 
got all this done, and had made my pack and bound it on 
the packsaddle, the day was tiptoe on the threshold of the 
east. We had not gone many steps along the lane, before 
the sun, still invisible to me, sent a glow of gold over some 
cloud mountains that lay ranged along the eastern sky. 


208 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


The wind had us on the stern, and hurried us bitingly 
forward. I buttoned myself into my coat, and walked 
on in a pleasant frame of mind with all men, when sud¬ 
denly at a corner, there was Fouzilhic once more in front 
of me. Nor only that, but there was the old gentleman 
who had escorted me so far the night before, running out 
of his house at sight of me, with hands upraised in horror. 

“My poor boy!” he cried, “what does this mean?” 

I told him what had happened. He beat his old hands 
like clappers in a mill, to think how lightly he had let me 
go; but when he heard of the man of Fouzilhac, anger 
and depression seized upon his mind. 

“This time, at least,” said he, “there shall be no mis¬ 
take.” 

And he limped along, for he was very rheumatic, for 
about half a mile, and until I was almost within sight of 
Cheylard, the destination I had hunted for so long. 


CHEYLARD AND LUC 


Candidly, it seemed little worthy of all this searching. 
A few broken ends of village, with no particular street, but 
a succession of open places heaped with logs and fagots; 
a couple of tilted crosses, a shrine to our Lady of all Graces 
on the summit of a little hill; and all this, upon a rattling 
highland river, in the corner of a naked valley. What 
went ye out for to see? thought I to myself. But the 
place had a life of its own. I found a board commemorat¬ 
ing the liberalities of Cheylard for the past year, hung up, 
like a banner, in the diminutive and tottering church. 
In 1877, it appeared, the inhabitants subscribed forty- 
eight francs ten centimes for the “Work of the Propaga¬ 
tion of the Faith.” Some of this, I could not help hop¬ 
ing, would be applied to my native land. Cheylard scrapes 
together halfpence for the darkened souls in Edinburgh; 
while Balquidder and Dunrossness bemoan the ignorance 
of Rome. Thus, to the high entertainment of the angels, 
do we pelt each other with evangelists, like schoolboys 
bickering in the snow. 

The inn was again singularly unpretentious. The 
whole furniture of a not ill-to-do family was in the kitchen : 
the beds, the cradle, the clothes, the plate rack, the meal 
chest, and the photograph of the parish priest. There 
were five children, one of whom was set to its morning 
prayers at the stair-foot soon after my arrival, and a 
209 


210 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


sixth would ere long be forthcoming. I was kindly re¬ 
ceived by these good folk. They were much interested in 
my misadventure. The wood in which I had slept be¬ 
longed to them; the man of Fouzilhac they thought a 
monster of iniquity, and counseled me warmly to summon 
him at law — “ because I might have died.” The good 
wife was horror-stricken to see me drink over a pint of 
uncreamed milk. 

“You will do yourself an evil,” she said. “Permit me 
to boil it for you.” 

After I had begun the morning on this delightful 
liquor, she having an infinity of things to arrange, I was 
permitted, nay requested, to make a bowl of chocolate 
for myself. My boots and gaiters were hung up to dry, 
and, seeing me trying to write my journal on my knee, 
the eldest daughter let down a hinged table in the chimney 
corner for my convenience. Here I wrote, drank my 
chocolate, and finally ate an omelette before I left. The 
table was thick with dust; for, as they explained, it was 
not used except in winter weather. I had a clear look up 
the vent, through brown agglomerations of soot and blue 
vapor, to the sky; and whenever a handful of twigs was 
thrown on to the fire, my legs were scorched by the 
blaze. 

The husband had begun life as a muleteer, and when I 
came to charge Modestine showed himself full of the 
prudence of his art. “You will have to change this pack¬ 
age,” said he; “ it ought to be in two parts, and then you 
might have double the weight.” 

I explained that I wanted no more weight; and for no 
donkey hitherto created would I cut my sleeping bag in two. 


UPPER GEVAUDAN 


211 


“It fatigues her, however/’ said the innkeeper; “it 
fatigues her greatly on the march. Look.” 

Alas, there were her two forelegs no better than raw 
beef on the inside, and blood was running from under her 
tail. They told me when I left, and I was ready to believe 
it, that before a few days I should come to love Modestine 
like a dog. Three days had passed, we had shared some 
misadventures, and my heart was still as cold as a potato 
towards my beast of burden. She was pretty enough to 
look at; but then she had given proof of dead stupidity, 
redeemed indeed by patience, but aggravated by flashes 
of sorry and ill-judged light-heartedness. And I own 
this new discovery seemed another point against her. 
What the devil was the good of a she-ass if she could not 
carry a sleeping bag and a few necessaries? I saw the 
end of the fable rapidly approaching, when I should have 
to carry Modestine. ^Esop was the man to know the 
world! I assure you I set out with heavy thoughts upon 
my short day’s march. 

It was not only heavy thoughts about Modestine that 
weighted me upon the way; it was a leaden business alto¬ 
gether. For first, the wind blew so rudely that I had to 
hold on the pack with one hand from Cheylard to Luc 
and second, my road lay through one of the most beggarly 
countries in the world. It was like the worst of the Scotch 
Highlands, only worse; cold, naked, and ignoble, scant 
of wood, scant of heather, scant of life. A road and some 
fences broke the unvarying waste, and the line of the road 
was marked by upright pillars, to serve in time of snow. 

Why any one should desire to visit either Luc or Chey¬ 
lard is more than my much-inventing spirit can suppose. 


212 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I 
travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move; to 
feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come 
down off this feather bed of civilization, and find the globe 
granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints. Alas, 
as we get up in life, and are more preoccupied with our 
affairs, even a holiday is a thing that must be worked for. 
To hold a pack upon a packsaddle against a gale out of 
the freezing north is no high industry, but it is one that 
serves to occupy and compose the mind. And when the pres¬ 
ent is so exacting, who can annoy himself about the future ? 

I came out at length above the Allier. A more un¬ 
sightly prospect at this season of the year it would be 
hard to fancy. Shelving hills rose round it on all sides, 
here dabbled with wood and fields, there rising to peaks 
alternately naked and hairy with pines. The color 
throughout was black or ashen, and came to a point in 
the ruins of the castle of Luc, which pricked up impudently 
from below my feet, carrying on a pinnacle a tall white 
statue of our Lady, which, I heard with interest, weighed 
fifty quintals, and was to be dedicated on the 6th of Octo¬ 
ber. Through this sorry landscape trickled the Allier 
and a tributary of nearly equal size, which came down to 
join it through a broad nude valley in Vivarais. The 
weather had somewhat lightened, and the clouds massed 
in squadron; but the fierce wind still hunted them 
through heaven, and cast great ungainly splashes of shadow 
and sunlight over the scene. 

Luc itself was a straggling double file of houses wedged 
between hill and river. It had no beauty, nor was there 
any notable feature, save the old castle overhead with its 


UPPER GEVAUDAN 


213 


fifty quintals of brand-new Madonna. But the inn was 
clean and large. The kitchen, with its two box beds hung 
with clean check curtains, with its wide stone chimney, 
its chimney shelf four yards long and garnished with 
lanterns and religious statuettes, its array of chests and 
pair of ticking clocks, was the very model of what a kitchen 
ought to be; a melodrama kitchen, suitable for bandits or 
noblemen in disguise. Nor was the scene disgraced by the 
landlady, a handsome, silent, dark old woman, clothed 
and hooded in black like a nun. Even the public bedroom 
had a character of its own, with the long deal tables and 
benches, where fifty might have dined, set out as for a 
harvest home, and the three box beds along the wall. In 
one of these, lying on straw and covered with a pair of 
table napkins, did I do penance all night long in goose- 
flesh and chattering teeth, and sigh from time to time as 
I awakened for my sheepskin sack and the lee of some 
great wood. 


OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 


“/ behold 

The House, the Brotherhood austere — 

And what am I , that I am here f ” 

— Matthew Arnold. 

FATHER APOLLINARIS 

Next morning (Thursday, 26th September) I took the 
road in a new order. The sack was no longer doubled, 
but hung at full length across the saddle, a green sausage 
six feet long with a tuft of blue wool hanging out of either 
end. It was more picturesque, it spared the donkey, and, 
as I began to see, it would insure stability, blow high, 
blow low. But it was not without a pang that I had so 
decided. For although I had purchased a new cord, and 
made all as fast as I was able, I was yet jealously uneasy 
lest the flaps should tumble out and scatter my effects 
along the line of march. 

My way lay up the bald valley of the river, along the 
march of Vivarais and Gevaudan. The hills of Gevaudan 
on the right were a little more naked, if anything, than 
those of Vivarais upon the left, and the former had a 
monopoly of a low dotty underwood that grew thickly in 
the gorges and died out in solitary burrs upon the shoulder 
and the summits. Black bricks of fir wood were plastered 
here and there upon both sides, and here and there were 
cultivated fields. A railway ran beside the river; the 
214 


OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 


215 


only bit of railway in Gevaudan, although there are many 
proposals afoot and surveys being made, and even, as 
they tell me, a station standing ready-built in Mende. 
A year or two hence and this may be another world. 
The desert is beleaguered. Now may some Languedocian 
Wordsworth turn the sonnet into patois; “ Mountains 
and vales and floods, heard ye that whistle ? ” 

At a place called La Bastide I was directed to leave the 
river, and follow a road that mounted on the left among 
the hills of Vivarais, the modern Ardeche; for I was now 
come within a little way of my strange destination, the 
Trappist monastery of our Lady of the Snows. The sun 
came out as I left the shelter of a pine wood, and I beheld 
suddenly a fine wild landscape to the south. High rocky 
hills, as blue as sapphire, closed the view, and between 
these lay ridge upon ridge, heathery, craggy, the sun 
glittering on veins of rock, the underwood clambering in 
the hollows, as rude as God made them at the first. 
There was not a sign of man’s hand in all the prospect; 
and indeed not a trace of his passage, save where genera¬ 
tion after generation had walked in twisted footpaths, 
in and out among the beeches, and up and down upon 
the channeled slopes. The mists, which had hitherto 
beset me, were now broken into clouds, and fled swiftly 
and shone brightly in the sun. I drew a long breath. It 
was grateful to come, after so long, upon a scene of some 
attraction for the human heart. I own I like definite 
form in what my eyes are to rest upon; and if landscapes 
were sold, like the sheets of characters of my boyhood, 
one penny plain and twopence colored, I should go the 
length of twopence every day of my life. 


216 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


But if things had grown better to the south, it was still 
desolate and inclement near at hand. A spidery cross 
on every hilltop marked the neighborhood of a religious 
house; and a quarter of a mile beyond, the outlook south¬ 
ward opening out and growing bolder with every step, a 
white statue of the Virgin at the corner of a young planta¬ 
tion directed the traveler to our Lady of the Snows. 
Here, then, I struck leftward, and pursued my way, driv¬ 
ing my secular donkey before me, and creaking in my 
secular boots and gaiters, towards the asylum of silence. 

I had not gone very far ere the wind brought to me 
the clanging of a bell, and somehow, I can scarce tell why, 
my heart sank within me at the sound. I have rarely 
approached anything with more unaffected terror than 
the monastery of our Lady of the Snows. This it is to 
have had a Protestant education. And suddenly, on 
turning a corner, fear took hold on me from head to foot 

— slavish superstitious fear; and though I did not stop 
in my advance, yet I went on slowly, like a man who should 
have passed a bourne unnoticed, and strayed into the coun¬ 
try of the dead. For there upon the narrow new-made 
road, between the stripling pines, was a mediaeval friar, 
fighting with a barrowful of turfs. Every Sunday of my 
childhood I used to study the Hermits of Marco Sadeler 

— enchanting prints, full of wood and field and mediaeval 
landscapes, as large as a county, for the imagination to 
go a-traveling in; and here, sure enough, was one of 
Marco Sadeler’s heroes. He was robed in white like any 
specter, and the hood falling back, in the instancy of his 
contention with the barrow, disclosed a pate as bald and 
yellow as a skull. He might have been buried any time 


OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 


217 


these thousand years, and all the lively parts of him re¬ 
solved into earth and broken up with the farmer’s harrow. 

I was troubled besides in my mind as to etiquette. 
Durst I address a person who was under a vow of silence ? 
Clearly not. But drawing near, I doffed my cap to him 
with a far-away superstitious reverence. He nodded 
back, and cheerfully addressed me. Was I going to the 
monastery ? Who was I ? An Englishman ? Ah, an 
Irishman, then? 

“No,” I said, “a Scotsman.” 

A Scotsman ? Ah, he had never seen a Scotsman before. 
And he looked me all over, his good, honest, brawny 
countenance shining with interest, as a boy might look 
upon a lion or an alligator. From him I learned with 
disgust that I could not be received at our Lady of the 
Snows; I might get a meal, perhaps, but that was all. 
And then, as our talk ran on, and it turned out that I was 
not a pedlar, but a literary man, who drew landscapes 
and was going to write a book, he changed his manner of 
thinking as to my reception (for I fear they respect per¬ 
sons even in a Trappist monastery), and told me I must 
be sure to ask for the Father Prior, and state my case to 
him in full. On second thoughts he determined to go down 
with me himself; he thought he could manage for me 
better. Might he say that I was a geographer ? 

No; I thought, in the interests of truth, he positively 
might not. 

“Very well, then” (with disappointment), “an author.” 

It appeared he had been in a seminary with six young 
Irishmen, all priests long since, who had received news¬ 
papers and kept him informed of the state of ecclesiastical 


218 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


affairs in England. And he asked me eagerly after Dr. 
Pusey, for whose conversion the good man had continued 
ever since to pray night and morning. 

“I thought he was very near the truth,” he said; “and 
he will reach it yet; there is so much virtue in prayer.” 

He must be a stiff ungodly Protestant who can take 
anything but pleasure in this kind and hopeful story. 
While he was thus near the subject, the good father asked 
me if I were a Christian; and when he found I was not, 
or not after his way, he glossed it over with great good¬ 
will. 

The road which we were following, and which this stal¬ 
wart father had made with his own two hands within the 
space of a year, came to a corner, and showed us some white 
buildings a little farther on beyond the wood. At the 
same time, the bell once more sounded abroad. We were 
hard upon the monastery. Father Apollinaris (for that 
was my companion’s name) stopped me. 

“ I must not speak to you down there,” he said. “ Ask 
for the Brother Porter, and all will be well. But try to 
see me as you go out again through the wood, where I 
may speak to you. I am charmed to have made your ac¬ 
quaintance.” 

And then suddenly raising his arms, flapping his fingers, 
and crying out twice, “I must not speak, I must not 
speak!” he ran away in front of me, and disappeared 
into the monastery door. 

I own this somewhat ghastly eccentricity went a good 
way to revive my terrors. But where one was so good 
and simple, why should not all be alike? I took heart 
of grace, and went forward to the gate as fast as Modes- 


OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 


219 


tine, who seemed to have a disaffection for monasteries, 
would permit. It was the first door, in my acquaintance 
of her, which she had not shown an indecent haste to enter. 
I summoned the place in form, though with a quaking 
heart. Father Michael, the Father Hospitaller, and a 
pair of brown-robed brothers came to the gate and spoke 
with me awhile. I think my sack was the great attrac¬ 
tion ; it had already beguiled the heart of poor Apollinaris, 
who had charged me on my life to show it to the Father 
Prior. But whether it was my address, or the sack, or 
the idea speedily published among that part of the brother¬ 
hood who attend on strangers that I was not a pedlar after 
all, I found no difficulty as to my reception. Modes tine 
was led away by a layman to the stables, and I and my 
pack were received into our Lady of the Snows. 


THE MONKS 


Father Michael, a pleasant, fresh-faced, smiling man 
perhaps of thirty-five, took me to the pantry, and gave 
me a glass of liqueur to stay me until dinner. We had 
some talk, or rather I should say he listened to my prattle 
indulgently enough, but with an abstracted air, like a 
spirit with a thing of clay. And truly when I remember 
that I descanted principally on my appetite, and that it 
must have been by that time more than eighteen hours 
since Father Michael had so much as broken bread, I 
can well understand that he would find an earthly savor 
in my conversation. But his manner, though superior, 
was exquisitely gracious; and I find I have a lurking 
curiosity as to Father Michael’s past. 

The whet administered, I was left alone for a little in 
the monastery garden. This is no more than the main 
court, laid out in sandy paths and beds of party-colored 
dahlias, and with a fountain and a black statue of the 
Virgin in the center. The buildings stand around it 
foursquare, bleak, as yet unseasoned by the years and 
weather, and with no other features than a belfry and a 
pair of slated gables. Brothers in white, brothers in 
brown, passed silently along the sanded alleys; and when 
I first came out, three hooded monks were kneeling on the 
terrace at their prayers. A naked hill commands the 
monastery upon one side, and the wood commands it on 
the other. It lies exposed to wind; the snow falls off 
220 


OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 


221 


and on from October to May, and sometimes lies six weeks 
on end; but if they stood in Eden, with a climate like 
heaven’s, the buildings themselves would offer the same 
wintry and cheerless aspect; and for my part, on this wild 
September day, before I was called to dinner, I felt chilly 
in and out. 

When I had eaten well and heartily, Brother Ambrose, 
a hearty conversable Frenchman (for all those who wait 
on strangers have the liberty to speak), led me to a little 
room in that part of the building which is set apart for 
MM. les retraitants. It was clean and whitewashed, and 
furnished with strict necessaries, a crucifix, a bust of the 
late Pope, the Imitation in French, a book of religious 
meditations, and the Life of Elizabeth Seton, evangelist, it 
would appear, of North America and of New England in 
particular. As far as my experience goes, there is a fair 
field for some more evangelization in these quarters; but 
think of Cotton Mather ! I should like to give him a read¬ 
ing of this little work in heaven, where I hope he dwells; 
but perhaps he knows all that already, and much more; 
and perhaps he and Mrs. Seton are the dearest friends, 
and gladly unite their voices in the everlasting psalm. 
Over the table, to conclude the inventory of the room, 
hung a set of regulations for MM. les retraitants: what 
services they should attend, when they were to tell their 
beads or meditate, and when they were to rise and go to 
rest. At the foot was a notable N. B.: “ Le temps libre 
est employe a Vexamen de conscience, a la confession, a faire 
de bonnes resolutions,” etc. To make good resolutions, 
indeed! You might talk as fruitfully of making the hair 
grow on your head. 


222 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


I had scarce explored my niche when Brother Ambrose 
returned. An English boarder, it appeared, would like 
to speak with me. I professed my willingness, and the 
friar ushered in a fresh, young little Irishman of fifty, a 
deacon of the Church, arrayed in strict canonicals, and 
wearing on his head what, in default of knowledge, I can 
only call the ecclesiastical shako. He had lived seven 
years in retreat at a convent of nuns in Belgium, and now 
five at our Lady of the Snows; he never saw an English 
newspaper; he spoke French imperfectly, and had he 
spoken it like a native, there was not much chance of con¬ 
versation where he dwelt. With this, he was a man emi¬ 
nently sociable, greedy of news, and simple-minded like 
a child. If I was pleased to have a guide about the mon¬ 
astery, he was no less delighted to see an English face and 
hear an English tongue. 

He showed me his own room, where he passed his time 
among breviaries, Hebrew bibles, and the Waverley novels. 
Thence he led me to the cloisters, into the chapter house, 
through the vestry, where the brothers’ gowns and broad 
straw hats were hanging up, each with his religious name 
upon a board, — names full of legendary suavity and 
interest, such as Basil, Hilarion, Raphael, or Pacifique; 
into the library, where were all the works of Veuillot and 
Chateaubriand, and the Odes et Ballades, if you please, 
and even Moliere, to say nothing of innumerable fathers 
and a great variety of local and general historians. Thence 
my good Irishman took me round the workshops, where 
brothers bake bread, and make cart wheels, and take 
photographs; where one superintends a collection of 
curiosities, and another a gallery of rabbits. For in a 


OUR LADY OP THE SNOWS 


223 


Trappist monastery each monk has an occupation of his 
own choice, apart from his religious duties and the general 
labors of the house. Each must sing in the choir, if he 
has a voice and ear, and join in the haymaking if he has 
a hand to stir; but in his private hours, although he must 
be occupied, he may be occupied on what he likes. Thus 
I was told that one brother was engaged with literature; 
while Father Apollinaris busies himself in making roads, 
and the Abbot employs himself in binding books. It is 
not so long since this Abbot was consecrated, by the way; 
and on that occasion, by a special grace, his mother was 
permitted to enter the chapel and witness the ceremony 
of consecration. A proud day for her to have a son a 
mitred abbot; it makes you glad to think they let her 
in. 

In all these journeyings to and fro, many silent fathers 
and brethren fell in our way. Usually they paid no more 
regard to our passage than if we had been a cloud; but 
sometimes the good deacon had a permission to ask of them, 
and it was granted by a peculiar movement of the hands, 
almost like that of a dog’s paws in swimming, or refused 
by the usual negative signs, and in either case with low¬ 
ered eyelids and a certain air of contrition, as of a man 
who was steering very close to evil. 

The monks, by special grace of their Abbot, were still 
taking two meals a day; but it was already time for their 
grand fast, which begins somewhere in September and 
lasts till Easter, and during which they eat but once in 
the twenty-four hours, and that at two in the afternoon, 
twelve hours after they have begun the toil and vigil of 
the day. Their meals are scanty, but even of these they 


224 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


eat sparingly; and though each is allowed a small carafe 
of wine, many refrain from this indulgence. Without 
doubt, the most of mankind grossly overeat themselves; 
our meals serve not only for support, but as a hearty and 
natural diversion from the labor of life. Although excess 
may be hurtful, I should have thought this Trappist regi¬ 
men defective. And I am astonished, as I look back, at 
the freshness of face and cheerfulness of manner of all 
whom I beheld. A happier nor a healthier company I 
should scarce suppose that I have ever seen. As a matter 
of fact, on this bleak upland, and with the incessant occu¬ 
pation of the monks, life is of an uncertain tenure, and 
death no infrequent visitor, at our Lady of the Snows. 
This, at least, was what was told me. But if they die 
easily, they must live healthily in the meantime, for they 
seemed all firm of flesh and high in color; and the only 
morbid sign that I could observe, an unusual brilliancy 
of eye, was one that served rather to increase the general 
impression of vivacity and strength. 

Those with whom I spoke were singularly sweet- 
tempered, with what I can only call a holy cheerfulness 
in air and conversation. There is a note, in the direction 
to visitors, telling them not to be offended at the curt 
speech of those who wait upon them, since it is proper to 
monks to speak little. The note might have been spared; 
to a man the hospitallers were all brimming with innocent 
talk, and, in my experience of the monastery, it was easier 
to begin than to break off a conversation. With the ex¬ 
ception of Father Michael, who was a man of the world, 
they showed themselves full of kind and healthy interest 
in all sorts of subjects — in politics, in voyages, in my 


OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 


225 


sleeping sack — and not without a certain pleasure in the 
sound of their own voices. 

As for those who are restricted to silence, I can only 
wonder how they bear their solemn and cheerless isola¬ 
tion. And yet, apart from any view of mortification, I 
can see a certain policy, not only in the exclusion of 
women, but in this vow of silence. I have had some ex¬ 
perience of lay phalansteries, of an artistic, not to say a 
bacchanalian, character; and seen more than one associa¬ 
tion easily formed, and yet more easily dispersed. With 
a Cistercian rule, perhaps they might have lasted longer. 
In the neighborhood of women it is but a touch-and-go 
association that can be formed among defenceless men; 
the stronger electricity is sure to triumph; the dreams of 
boyhood, the schemes of youth, are abandoned after an 
interview of ten minutes, and the arts and sciences, and 
professional male jollity, deserted at once for two sweet 
eyes and a caressing accent. And next after this, the 
tongue is the great divider. 

I am almost ashamed to pursue this worldly criticism 
of a religious rule ; but there is yet another point in which 
the Trappist order appeals to me as a model of wisdom. 
By two in the morning the clapper goes upon the bell, 
and so on, hour by hour, and sometimes quarter by 
quarter, till eight, the hour of rest; so infinitesimally is 
the day divided among different occupations. The man 
who keeps rabbits, for example, hurries from his hutches 
to the chapel, the chapter room, or the refectory, all day 
long; every hour he has an office to sing, a duty to per¬ 
form; from two, when he rises in the dark, till eight, 
when he returns to receive the comfortable gift of sleep, 


226 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


he is upon his feet and occupied with manifold and chang¬ 
ing business. I know many persons, worth several thou¬ 
sand in the year, who are not so fortunate in the disposal 
of their lives. Into how many houses would not the note 
of the monastery bell, dividing the day into manageable 
portions, bring peace of mind and healthful activity of 
body? We speak of hardships, but the true hardship is 
to be a dull fool, and permitted to mismanage life in our 
own dull and foolish manner. 

From this point of view, we may perhaps better under¬ 
stand the monk’s existence. A long novitiate, and every 
proof of constancy of mind and strength of body is re¬ 
quired before admission to the order; but I could not 
find that many were discouraged. In the photographer’s 
studio, which figures so strangely among the outbuildings, 
my eye was attracted by the portrait of a young fellow 
in the uniform of a private of foot. This was one of the 
novices, who came of the age for service, and marched and 
drilled and mounted guard for the proper time among the 
garrison of Algiers. Here was a man who had surely seen 
both sides of life before deciding; yet as soon as he 
was set free from service he returned to finish his novi¬ 
tiate. 

This austere rule entitles a man to heaven as by right. 
When the Trappist sickens, he quits not his habit; he lies 
in the bed of death as he has prayed and labored in his 
frugal and silent existence; and when the Liberator comes, 
at the very moment, even before they have carried him 
in his robe to lie his little last in the chapel among 
continual chantings, joy bells break forth, as if for a 
marriage, from the slated belfry, and proclaim through- 


OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 


227 


out the neighborhood that another soul has gone to 
God. 

At night, under the conduct of my kind Irishman, I 
took my place in the gallery to hear compline and Salve 
Regina, with which the Cistercians bring every day to a 
conclusion. There were none of those circumstances 
which strike the Protestant as childish or as tawdry in 
the public offices of Rome. A stern simplicity, heightened 
by the romance of the surroundings, spoke directly to the 
heart. I recall the whitewashed chapel, the hooded figures 
in the choir, the lights alternately occluded and revealed, 
the strong manly singing, the silence that ensued, the sight 
of cowled heads bowed in prayer, and then the clear 
trenchant beating of the bell, breaking in to show that 
the last office was over and the hour of sleep had come; 
and when I remember, I am not surprised that I made 
my escape into the court with somewhat whirling fancies, 
and stood like a man bewildered in the win,dy starry night. 

But I was weary; and when I had quieted my spirits 
with Elizabeth Seton’s memoirs — a dull work — the cold 
and the raving of the wind among the pines — for my 
room was on that side of the monastery which adjoins 
the woods — disposed me readily to slumber. I was 
wakened at black midnight, as it seemed, though it was 
really two in the morning, by the first stroke upon the bell. 
All the brothers were then hurrying to the chapel; the 
dead in life, at this untimely hour, were already begin¬ 
ning the uncomforted labors of their day. The dead in 
life — there was a chill reflection. And the words of a 
French song came back into my memory, telling of the 
best of our mixed existence : 


228 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


“ Que t’as de belles filles, 

Girofle! 

Girofla! 

Que t’as de belles filles, 

L’Amour les comptera!” 

And I blessed God that I was free to wander, free to hope, 
and free to love. 


THE BOARDERS 


But there was another side to my residence at our 
Lady of the Snows. At this late season there were not 
many boarders; and yet I was not alone in the public 
part of the monastery. This itself is hard by the gate, 
with a small dining room on the ground floor, and a whole 
corridor of cells similar to mine upstairs. I have stupidly 
forgotten the board for a regular retraitant; but it was 
somewhere between three and five francs a day, and I 
think most probably the first. Chance visitors like my¬ 
self might give what they chose as a free-will offering, but 
nothing was demanded. I may mention that when I was 
going away, Father Michael refused twenty francs as ex¬ 
cessive. I explained the reasoning which led me to offer 
him so much; but even then, from a curious point of 
honor, he would not accept it with his own hand. “I 
have no right to refuse for the monastery,” he explained, 
“ but I should prefer if you would give it to one of the 
brothers.” 

I had dined alone, because I arrived late; but at supper 
I found two other guests. One was a country parish 
priest, who had walked over that morning from the seat 
of his cure near Mende to enjoy four days of solitude and 
prayer. He was a grenadier in person, with the hale color 
and circular wrinkles of a peasant; and as he complained 
much of how he had been impeded by his skirts upon the 
229 


230 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


march, I have a vivid fancy portrait of him, striding along, 
upright, big-boned, with kilted cassock, through the bleak 
hills of Gevaudan. The other was a short, grizzling, 
thick-set man, from forty-five to fifty, dressed in tweed 
with a knitted spencer, and the red ribbon of a decoration 
in his buttonhole. This last was a hard person to classify. 
He was an old soldier, who had seen service and risen to 
the rank of commandant; and he retained some of the 
brisk decisive manners of the camp. On the other hand, 
as soon as his resignation was accepted, he had come to 
our Lady of the Snows as a boarder, and after a brief 
experience of its ways, had decided to remain as a novice. 
Already the new life was beginning to modify his appear¬ 
ance; already he had acquired somewhat of the quiet 
and smiling air of the brethren; and he was as yet neither 
an officer nor a Trappist, but partook of the character of 
each. And certainly here was a man in an interesting 
nick of life. Out of the noise of cannon and trumpets, 
he was in the act of passing into this still country border¬ 
ing on the grave, where men sleep nightly in their grave- 
clothes, and, like phantoms, communicate by signs. 

At supper, we talked politics. I make it my business, 
when I am in France, to preach political goodwill and 
moderation, and to dwell on the example of Poland^ much 
as some alarmists in England dwell on the example of 
Carthage. The priest and the Commandant assured me 
of their sympathy with all I said, and made a heavy sigh¬ 
ing over the bitterness of contemporary feeling. 

“Why, you cannot say anything to a man with which 
he does not absolutely agree,” said I, “ but he flies up at 
you in a temper.” 


OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 


231 


They both declared that such a state of things was anti- 
christian. 

While we were thus agreeing, what should my tongue 
stumble upon but a word in praise of Gambetta’s modera¬ 
tion. The old soldier’s countenance was instantly suf¬ 
fused with blood; with the palms of his hands he beat the 
table like a naughty child. 

“ Comment , monsieur ?” he shouted. “Comment? 
Gambetta moderate? Will you dare to justify these 
words ?” 

But the priest had not forgotten the tenor of our talk. 
And suddenly, in the height of his fury, the old soldier 
found a warning look directed on his face; the absurdity 
of his behavior was brought home to him in a flash; 
and the storm came to an abrupt end, without another 
word. 

It was only in the morning, over our coffee (Friday, 
September 27), that this couple found out I was a heretic. 
I suppose I had misled them by some admiring expressions 
as to the monastic life around us; and it was only by a 
point-blank question that the truth came out. I had 
been tolerantly used, both by simple Father Apollinaris 
and astute Father Michael; and the good Irish deacon, 
when he heard of my religious weakness, had only patted 
me upon the shoulder and said, “You must be a Catholic 
and come to heaven.” But I was now among a different 
sect of orthodox. These two men were bitter and up¬ 
right and narrow, like the worst of Scotsmen, and indeed, 
upon my heart, I fancy they were worse. The priest 
snorted aloud like a battle-horse. 

“ Et vous pretendez mourir dans cette espece de croyance ? ” 


232 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


he demanded; and there is no type used by mortal printers 
large enough to qualify his accent. 

I humbly indicated that I had no design of changing. 

But he could not away with such a monstrous attitude. 
“No, no,” he cried; “you must change. You have come 
here, God has led you here, and you must embrace the 
opportunity.” 

I made a slip in policy; I appealed to the family affec¬ 
tions, though I was speaking to a priest and a soldier, 
two classes of men circumstantially divorced from the 
kind and homely ties of life. 

“Your father and mother?” cried the priest. “Very 
well; you will convert them in their turn when you go 
home.” 

I think I see my father’s face! I would rather tackle 
the Gsetulian lion in his den than embark on such an enter¬ 
prise against the family theologian. 

But now the hunt was up; priest and soldier were in 
full cry for my conversion; and the Work of the Propa¬ 
gation of the Faith, for which the people of Cheylard sub¬ 
scribed forty-eight francs ten centimes during 1877, was 
being gallantly pursued against myself. It was an odd 
but most effective proselytizing. They never sought to 
convince me in argument, where I might have attempted 
some defence; but took it for granted that I was both 
ashamed and terrified at my position, and urged me solely 
on the point of time. Now, they said, when God had led 
me to our Lady of the Snows, now was the appointed 
hour. 

“Do not be withheld by false shame,” observed the 
priest, for my encouragement. 


OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 


233 


For one who feels very similarly to all sects of religion, 
and who has never been able, even for a moment, to weigh 
seriously the merit of this or that creed on the eternal 
side of things, however much he may see to praise or 
blame upon the secular and temporal side, the situation 
thus created was both unfair and painful. I committed 
my second fault in tact, and tried to plead that it was all 
the same thing in the end, and we were all drawing near 
by different sides to the same kind and undiscriminating 
Friend and Father. That, as it seems to lay spirits, would 
be the only gospel worthy of the name. But different 
men think differently; and this revolutionary aspira¬ 
tion brought down the priest with all the terrors of the 
law. He launched into harrowing details of hell. The 
damned, he said — on the authority of a little book which 
he had read not a week before, and which, to add con¬ 
viction to conviction, he had fully intended to bring along 
with him in his pocket — were to occupy the same attitude 
through all eternity in the midst of dismal tortures. And 
as he thus expatiated, he grew in nobility of aspect with 
his enthusiasm. 

As a result the pair concluded that I should seek out 
the Prior, since the Abbot was from home, and lay my 
case immediately before him. 

“C’est mon conseil comme ancien militaire” observed 
the Commandant; “ et celui de monsieur comme pretre” 

“ Oui,” added the cure, sententiously nodding; “ comme 
ancien militaire — et comme pretre” 

At this moment, whilst I was somewhat embarrassed 
how to answer, in came one of the monks, a little brown 
fellow, as lively as a grig, and with an Italian accent, who 


234 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


threw himself at once into the contention, but in a milder 
and more persuasive vein, as befitted one of these pleasant 
brethren. Look at him, he said. The rule was very 
hard; he would have dearly liked to stay in his own coun¬ 
try, Italy — it was well known how beautiful it was, the 
beautiful Italy; but then there were no Trappists in Italy; 
and he had a soul to save; and here he was. 

I am afraid I must be at bottom, what a cheerful 
Indian critic has dubbed me, “a faddling hedonist”; for 
this description of the brother’s motives gave me some¬ 
what of a shock. I should have preferred to think he 
had chosen the life for its own sake, and not for ulterior 
purposes; and this shows how profoundly I was out of 
sympathy with these good Trappists, even when I was 
doing my best to sympathize. But to the cure the argu¬ 
ment seemed decisive. 

“Hear that!” he cried. “And I have seen a marquis 
here, a marquis, a marquis ” — he repeated the holy word 
three times over — “ and other persons high in society; 
and generals. And here, at your side, is this gentleman, 
who has been so many years in armies — decorated, an old 
warrior. And here he is, ready to dedicate himself to 
God.” 

I was by this time so thoroughly embarrassed that I 
pleaded cold feet, and made my escape from the apart¬ 
ment. It was a furious windy morning, with a sky much 
cleared, and long and potent intervals of sunshine; and 
I wandered until dinner in the wild country towards the 
east, sorely staggered and beaten upon by the gale, but 
rewarded with some striking views. 

At dinner the Work of the Propagation of the Faith 


OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 


235 


was recommenced, and on this occasion still more dis¬ 
tastefully to me. The priest asked me many questions 
as to the contemptible faith of my fathers, and received 
my replies with a kind of ecclesiastical titter. 

“Your sect,” he said once; “for I think you will ad¬ 
mit it would be doing it too much honor to call it a 
religion.” 

“As you please, monsieur,” said I. “La parole est a 
vous” 

At length I grew annoyed beyond endurance; and 
although he was on his own ground, and, what is more 
to the purpose, an old man, and so holding a claim upon 
my toleration, I could not avoid a protest against this 
uncivil usage. He was sadly discountenanced. 

“I assure you,” he said, “I have no inclination to laugh 
in my heart. I have no other feeling but interest in your 
soul.” 

And there ended my conversion. Honest man! He 
was no dangerous deceiver; but a Country parson, full 
of zeal and faith. Long may he tread Gevaudan with his 
kilted skirts — a man strong to walk and strong to 1 com¬ 
fort his parishioners in death! I dare say he would beat 
bravely through a snowstorm where his duty called 
him; and it is not always the most faithful believer who 
makes the cunningest apostle. 



Mirandol on the Chassezac 






















UPPER GEVAUDAN ( continued ) 

“ The bed was made, the room was fit , 

By punctual eve the stars were lit; 

The air was sweet, the water ran; 

No need was there for maid or man. 

When we put up, my ass and I, 

At God'8 green caravanserai." 

— Old Play. 


ACROSS THE GOULET 

The wind fell during dinner, and the sky remained 
clear; so it was under better auspices that I loaded Mo- 
destine before the monastery gate. My Irish friend ac¬ 
companied me so far on the way. As we came through 
the wood, there was Pere Apollinaire hauling his barrow; 
and he too quitted his labors to go with me for perhaps 
a hundred yards, holding my hand between both of his 
in front of him. I parted first from one and then from 
the other with unfeigned regret, but yet with the glee 
of the traveler who shakes off the dust of one stage before 
hurrying forth upon another. Then Modestine and I 
mounted the course of the Allier, which here led us back 
into Gevaudan towards its sources in the forest of Mer- 
coire. It was but an inconsiderable burn before we left 
its guidance. Thence, over a hill, our way lay through a 
naked plateau, until we reached Chasserades at sundown. 

The company in the inn kitchen that night were all 
237 


238 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


men employed in survey for one of the projected railways. 
They were intelligent and conversable, and we decided 
the future of France over hot wine, until the state of the 
clock frightened us to rest. There were four beds in the 
little upstairs room; and we slept six. But I had a bed 
to myself, and persuaded them to leave the window open. 

“He, bourgeois; il est cinq heures!” was the cry that 
wakened me in the morning (Saturday, September 28). 
The room was full of a transparent darkness, which dimly 
showed me the other three beds and the five different night¬ 
caps on the pillows. But out of the window the dawn was 
growing ruddy in a long belt over the hilltops and day 
was about to flood the plateau. The hour was inspiring; 
and there seemed a promise of calm weather, which was 
perfectly fulfilled. I was soon under way with Modes- 
tine. The road lay for awhile over the plateau, and then 
descended through a precipitous village into the valley of 
the Chassezac. This stream ran among green meadows, 
well hidden from the world by its steep banks ; the broom 
was in flower, and here and there was a hamlet sending up 
its smoke. 

At last the path crossed the Chassezac upon a bridge, 
and, forsaking this deep hollow, set itself to cross the 
mountain of La Goulet. It wound up through Lestampes 
by upland fields and woods of beech and birch, and with 
every corner brought me into an acquaintance with some 
new interest. Even in the gully of the Chassezac my ear 
had been struck by a noise like that of a great bass bell 
ringing at the distance of many miles; but this, as I con¬ 
tinued to mount and draw nearer to it, seemed to change 
in character, and I found at length that it came from some 


UPPER GEVAUDAN 


239 


one leading flocks afield to the note of a rural horn. The 
narrow street of Lestampes stood full of sheep, from wall 
to wall — black sheep and white, bleating like the birds 
in spring, and each one accompanying himself upon the 
sheep bell round his neck. It made a pathetic concert, 
all in treble. A little higher, and I passed a pair of men 
in a tree with pruning hooks, and one of them was sing¬ 
ing the music of a bourree. Still further, and when I was 
already threading the birches, the crowing of cocks came 
cheerfully up to my ears, and along with that the voice of 
a flute discoursing a deliberate and plaintive air from one 
of the upland villages. I pictured to myself some grizzled, 
apple-cheeked, country schoolmaster fluting in his bit 
of a garden in the clear autumn sunshine. All these beau¬ 
tiful and interesting sounds filled my heart with an un¬ 
wonted expectation; and it appeared to me that, once 
past this range which I was mounting, I should descend 
into the garden of the world. Nor was I deceived, for 
I was now done with rains and winds and a bleak country. 
The first part of my journey ended here; and this was 
like an induction of sweet sounds into the other and more 
beautiful. 

There are other degrees of feyness, as of punishment, 
besides the capital; and I was now led by my good spirits 
into an adventure which I relate in the interest of future 
donkey drivers. The road zigzagged so widely on the 
hillside that I chose a short cut by map and compass, 
and struck through the dwarf woods to catch the road 
again upon a higher level. It was my one serious conflict 
with Modestine. She would none of my short cut; she 
turned in my face, she backed, she reared; she, whom I 


240 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


had hitherto imagined to be dumb, actually brayed with 
a loud hoarse flourish, like a cock crowing for the dawn. 
I plied the goad with one hand; with the other, so steep 
was the ascent, I had to hold on the packsaddle. Half a 
dozen times she was nearly over backwards on the top 
of me; half a dozen times, from sheer weariness of spirit, 
I was nearly giving it up, and leading her down again to 
follow the road. But I took the thing as a wager, and 
fought it through. I was surprised, as I went on my way 
again, by what appeared to be chill raindrops falling on 
my hand, and more than once looked up in wonder at the 
cloudless sky. But it was only sweat which came drop¬ 
ping from my brow. 

Over the summit of the Goulet there was no marked 
road — only upright stones posted from space to space 
to guide the drovers. The turf underfoot was springy 
and well scented. I had no company but a lark or two, 
and met but one bullock cart between Lestampes and 
Bleymard. In front of me I saw a shallow valley, and 
beyond that the range of the Lozere, sparsely wooded 
and well enough modeled in the flanks, but straight and 
dull in outline. There was scarce a sign of culture; only 
about Bleymard, the white highroad from Villefort to 
Mende traversed a range of meadows, set with spiry pop¬ 
lars, and sounding from side to side with the bells of flocks 
and herds. 


A NIGHT AMONG THE PINES 


From Bleymard after dinner, although it was already 
late, I set out to scale a portion of the Lozere. An ill- 
marked stony drove-road guided me forward; and I met 
nearly half a dozen bullock carts descending from the 
woods, each laden with a whole pine tree for the winter’s 
firing. At the top of the woods, which do not climb 
very high upon this cold ridge, I struck leftward by a 
path among the pines, until I hit on a dell of green turf, 
where a streamlet made a little spout over some stones 
to serve me for a water tap. “In a more sacred or 
sequestered bower — nor nymph nor faunus haunted.” 
The trees were not old, but they grew thickly round the 
glade: there was no outlook, except northeastward upon 
distant hilltops, or straight upward to the sky; and the 
encampment felt secure and private like a room. By 
the time I had made my arrangements and fed Modestine, 
the day was already beginning to decline. I buckled my¬ 
self to the knees into my sack and made a hearty meal; 
and as soon as the sun went down, I pulled my cap over 
my eyes and fell asleep. 

Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof; but 
in the open world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews 
and perfumes, and the hours are marked by changes in 
the face of Nature. What seems a kind of temporal death 
to people choked between walls and curtains, is only a 
241 


242 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


light and living slumber to the man who sleeps afield. All 
night long he can hear Nature breathing deeply and freely; 
even as she takes her rest she turns and smiles; and there 
is one stirring hour unknown to those who dwell in houses, 
when a wakeful influence goes abroad over the sleeping 
hemisphere, and all the outdoor world are on their feet. 
It is then that the cock first crows, not this time to an¬ 
nounce the dawn, but like a cheerful watchman speeding 
the course of night. Cattle awake on the meadows; sheep 
break their fast on dewy hillsides, and change to a new lair 
among the ferns; and houseless men, who have lain down 
with the fowls, open their dim eyes and behold the beauty 
of the night. 

At what inaudible summons, at what gentle touch of 
Nature, are all these sleepers thus recalled in the same 
hour to life? Do the stars rain down an influence, or 
do we share some thrill of mother earth below our rest¬ 
ing bodies? Even shepherds and old countryfolk, who 
are the deepest read in these arcana, have not a guess as 
to the means or purpose of this nightly resurrection. 
Towards two in the morning they declare the thing takes 
place; and neither know nor inquire further. And at 
least it is a pleasant incident. We are disturbed in our 
slumber only, like the luxurious Montaigne, “that we 
may the better and more sensibly relish it.” We have a 
moment to look upon the stars, and there is a special 
pleasure for some minds in the reflection that we share 
the impulse with all outdoor creatures in our neighbor¬ 
hood, that we have escaped out of the Bastille of civiliza¬ 
tion, and are become, for the time being, a mere kindly 
animal and a sheep of Nature’s flock. 


UPPER GEVAUDAN 


243 


When that hour came to me among the pines, I wakened 
thirsty. My tin was standing by me half full of water. 
I emptied it at a draught; and feeling broad awake after 
this internal cold aspersion, sat upright to make a cigarette. 
The stars were clear, colored, and jewel-like, but not 
frosty. A faint silvery vapor stood for the Milky Way. 
All around me the black fir points stood upright and stock¬ 
still. By the whiteness of the packsaddle, I could see 
Modestine walking round and round at the length of her 
tether; I could hear her steadily munching at the sward; 
but there was not another sound, save the indescribable 
quiet talk of the runnel over the stones. I lay lazily 
smoking and studying the color of the sky, as we call 
the void of space, from where it showed a reddish grey 
behind the pines to where it showed a glossy blue-black 
between the stars. As if to be more like a pedlar, I wear 
a silver ring. This I could see faintly shining as I raised 
or lowered the cigarette; and at each whiff the inside of 
my hand was illuminated, and became for a second the 
highest light in the landscape. 

' A faint wind, more like a moving coolness than a stream 
of air, passed down the glade from time to time; so that 
even in my great chamber the air was being renewed all 
night long. I thought with horror of the inn at Chas- 
serades and the congregated nightcaps; with horror of 
the nocturnal prowesses of clerks and students, of hot 
theaters and pass keys and close rooms. I have not 
often enjoyed a more serene possession of myself, nor felt 
more independent of material aids. The outer world, 
from which we cower into our houses, seemed after all a 
gentle habitable place; and night after night a man’s 


244 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


bed, it seemed, was laid and waiting for him in the fields, 
where God keeps an open house. I thought I had re¬ 
discovered one of those truths which are revealed to sav¬ 
ages and hid from political economists: at the least, I 
had discovered a new pleasure for myself. And yet even 
while I was exulting in my solitude I became aware of a 
strange lack. I wished a companion to lie near me in 
the starlight, silent and not moving, but ever within touch. 
For there is a fellowship more quiet even than solitude, 
and which, rightly understood, is solitude made perfect. 
And to live out of doors with the woman a man loves is 
of all lives the most complete and free. 

As I thus lay, between content and longing, a faint 
noise stole towards me through the pines. I thought, 
at first, it was the crowing of cocks or the barking of dogs 
at some very distant farm; but steadily and gradually 
it took articulate shape in my ears, until I became aware 
that a passenger was going by upon the highroad in the 
valley, and singing loudly as he went. There was more 
of goodwill than grace in his performance; but he trolled 
with ample lungs; and the sound of his voice took hold 
upon the hillside and set the air shaking in the leafy glens. 
I have heard people passing by night in sleeping cities; 
some of them sang; one, I remember, played loudly on 
the bagpipes. I have heard the rattle of a cart or car¬ 
riage spring up suddenly after hours of stillness, and pass, 
for some minutes, within the range of my hearing as I 
lay abed. There is a romance about all who are abroad 
in the black hours, and with something of a thrill we try 
to guess their business. But here the romance was 
double: first, this glad passenger, lit internally with wine, 


UPPER GEVAUDAN 


245 


who sent up his voice in music through the night; and 
then I, on the other hand, buckled into my sack, and smok¬ 
ing alone in the pine woods between four and five thou¬ 
sand feet towards the stars. 

When I awoke again (Sunday, 29th September), many 
of the stars had disappeared; only the stronger com¬ 
panions of the night still burned visibly overhead; and 
away towards the east I saw a faint haze of light upon 
the horizon, such as had been the Milky Way when I 
was last awake. Day was at hand. I lit my lantern, 
and by its glow-worm light put on my boots and gaiters; 
then I broke up some bread for Modestine, filled my can 
at the water tap, and lit my spirit lamp to boil myself 
some chocolate. The blue darkness lay long in the glade 
where I had so sweetly slumbered; but soon there was a 
broad streak of orange melting into gold along the moun¬ 
tain tops of Vivarais. A solemn glee possessed my mind 
at this gradual and lovely coming in of day. I heard the 
runnel with delight; I looked round me for something 
beautiful and unexpected; but the still black pine trees, 
the hollow glade, the munching ass, remained unchanged 
in figure. Nothing had altered but the light, and that, 
indeed, shed over all a spirit of life and of breathing peace, 
and moved me to a strange exhilaration. 

I drank my water chocolate, which was hot if it was 
not rich, and strolled here and there, and up and down 
about the glade. While I was thus delaying, a gush of 
steady wind, as long as a heavy sigh, poured direct out of 
the quarter of the morning. It was cold, and set me sneez¬ 
ing. The trees near at hand tossed their black plumes 
in its passage; and I could see the thin distant spires of 


246 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


pine along the edge of the hill rock slightly to and fro 
against the golden east. Ten minutes after, the sunlight 
spread at a gallop along the hillside, scattering shadows 
and sparkles, and the day had come completely. 

I hastened to prepare my pack, and tackle the steep 
ascent that lay before me; but I had something on my 
mind. It was only a fancy; yet a fancy will sometimes 
be importunate. I had been most hospitably received 
and punctually served in my green caravanserai. The 
room was airy, the water excellent, and the dawn had 
called me to a moment. I say nothing of the tapestries 
or the inimitable ceiling, nor yet of the view which I 
commanded from the windows; but I felt I was in some 
one’s debt for all this liberal entertainment. And so it 
pleased me, in a half-laughing Way, to leave pieces of 
money on the turf as I went along, until I had left enough 
for my night’s lodging. I trust they did not fall to some 
rich and churlish drover. 


THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 


“ We traveled in the print of olden wars; 

Yet all the land was green; 

And love we found, and peace, 

Where fire and war had been. 

They pass and smile, the children of the sword — 

No more the sword they wield; 

And 0, how deep the corn 
Along the battle-field! ” 

— W. P. Bannatyne. 

ACROSS THE LOZERE 

The track that I had followed in the evening soon died 
out, and I continued to follow over a bald turf ascent a 
row of stone pillars, such as had conducted me across the 
Goulet. It was already warm. I tied my jacket on the 
pack, and walked in my knitted waistcoat. Modestine 
herself was in high spirits, and broke of her own accord, 
for the first time in my experience, into a jolting trot that 
sent the oats swashing in the pocket of my coat. The 
view, back upon the northern Gevaudan, extended with 
every step; scarce a tree, scarce a house, appeared upon 
the fields of wild hill that ran north, east, and west, all 
blue and gold in the haze and sunlight of the morning. 
A multitude of little birds kept sweeping and twittering 
about my path; they perched on the stone pillars, they 
pecked and strutted on the turf, and I saw them circle 

247 


7 /oil Hookt del. 



• .**. 5 .* lean 
*/ Ida 

f ard 












THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 249 


in volleys in the blue air, and show, from time to time, 
translucent flickering wings between the sun and me. 

Almost from the first moment of my march, a faint 
large noise, like a distant surf, had filled my ears. Some¬ 
times I was tempted to think it the voice of a neighboring 
waterfall, and sometimes a subjective result of the utter 
stillness of the hill. But as I continued to advance, the 
noise increased and became like the hissing of an enor¬ 
mous tea urn, and at the same time breaths of cool air 
began to reach me from the direction of the summit. At 
length I understood. It was blowing stiffly from the 
south upon the other slope of the Lozere, and every step 
that I took I was drawing nearer to the wind. 

Although it had been long desired, it was quite un¬ 
expectedly at last that my eyes rose above the summit. 
A step that seemed no way more decisive than many 
other steps that had preceded it — and, “ like stout Cortez 
when, with eagle eyes, he stared on the Pacific/’ I took 
possession, in my own name, of a new quarter of the 
world. For behold, instead of the gross turf rampart I 
had been mounting for so long, a view into the hazy air 
of heaven, and a land of intricate blue hills below my feet. 

The Lozere lies nearly east and west, cutting Gevaudan 
into two unequal parts; its highest point, this Pic de 
Finiels, on which I was then standing, rises upwards of 
five thousand six hundred feet above the sea, and in clear 
weather commands a view over all lower Languedoc to 
the Mediterranean Sea. I have spoken with people who 
either pretended or believed that they had seen, from the 
Pic de Finiels, white ships sailing by Montpellier and 
Cette. Behind was the upland northern country through 


250 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


which my way had lain, peopled by a dull race, without 
wood, without much grandeur of hill form and famous in 
the past for little beside wolves. But in front of me, half 
veiled in sunny haze, lay a new Gevaudan, rich, pictur¬ 
esque, illustrious for stirring events. Speaking largely, I 
was in the Cevennes at Monastier, and during all my 
journey; but there is a strict and local sense in which 
only this confused and shaggy country at my feet has any 
title to the name, and in this sense the peasantry employ 
the word. These are the Cevennes with an emphasis: 
the Cevennes of the Cevennes. In that undecipherable 
labyrinth of hills, a war of bandits, a war of wild beasts, 
raged for two years between the Grand Monarch with all 
his troops and marshals on the one hand, and a few thou¬ 
sand Protestant mountaineers upon the other. A hundred 
and eighty years ago, the Camisards held a station even 
on the Lozere, where I stood; they had an organization, 
arsenals, a military and religious hierarchy; their affairs 
were “the discourse of every coffee house” in London; 
England sent fleets in their support; their leaders proph¬ 
esied and murdered; with colors and drums, and the 
singing of old French psalms, their bands sometimes 
affronted daylight, marched before walled cities, and dis¬ 
persed the generals of the king; and sometimes at night, 
or in masquerade, possessed themselves of strong castles, 
and avenged treachery upon their allies and cruelty upon 
their foes. There, a hundred and eighty years ago, was 
the chivalrous Roland, “ Count and Lord Roland, gen¬ 
eralissimo of the Protestants in France,” grave, silent, 
imperious, pock-marked ex-dragoon, whom a lady fol¬ 
lowed in his wanderings out of love. There was Cavalier, 


THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 251 


a baker’s apprentice with a genius for war, elected briga¬ 
dier of Camisards at seventeen, to die at fifty-five the Eng¬ 
lish governor of Jersey. There again was Castanet, a 
partisan leader in a voluminous peruke and with a taste 
for controversial divinity. Strange generals, who moved 
apart to take counsel with the God of Hosts, and fled or 
offered battle, set sentinels or slept in an unguarded camp, 
as the Spirit whispered to their hearts! And there, to 
follow these and other leaders, was the rank and file of 
prophets and disciples, bold, patient, indefatigable, hardy 
to run upon the mountains, cheering their rough life with 
psalms, eager to fight, eager to pray, listening devoutly 
to the oracles of brain-sick children, and mystically putting 
a grain of wheat among the pewter balls with which they 
charged their muskets. 

I had traveled hitherto through a dull district, and in 
the track of nothing more notable than the child-eating 
Beast of Gevaudan, the Napoleon Bonaparte of wolves. 
But now I was to go down into the scene of a romantic 
chapter — or, better, a romantic footnote — in the his¬ 
tory of the world. What was left of all this by-gone dust 
and heroism? I was told that Protestantism still sur¬ 
vived in this head seat of Protestant resistance; so much 
the priest himself had told me in the monastery parlor. 
But I had yet to learn if it were a bare survival, or a lively* 
and generous tradition. Again, if in the northern Ce- 
vennes the people are narrow in religious judgments, and 
more filled with zeal than charity, what was I to look for 
in this land of persecution and reprisal — in a land where 
the tyranny of the Church produced the Camisard rebel¬ 
lion, and the terror of the Camisards threw the Catholic 


252 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


peasantry into legalized revolt upon the other side, so 
that Camisard and Florentin skulked for each other’s 
lives among the mountains ? 

Just on the brow of the hill, where I paused to look 
before me, the series of stone pillars came abruptly to an 
end ; and only a little below, a sort of track appeared and 
began to go down a breakneck slope, turning like a cork¬ 
screw as it went. It led into a valley between falling hills, 
stubbly with rocks like a reaped field of corn, and floored 
farther down with green meadows. I followed the track 
with precipitation; the steepness of the slope, the con¬ 
tinual agile turning of the line of descent, and the old un¬ 
wearied hope of finding something new in a new country, 
all conspired to lend me wings. Yet a little lower and a 
stream began, collecting itself together out of many foun¬ 
tains, and soon making a glad noise among the hills. 
Sometimes it would cross the track in a bit of waterfall, 
with a pool, in which Modestine refreshed her feet. 

The whole descent is like a dream to me, so rapidly 
was it accomplished. I had scarcely left the summit ere 
the valley had closed round my path, and the sun beat 
upon me, walking in a stagnant lowland atmosphere. 
The track became a road, and went up and down in easy 
undulations. I passed cabin after cabin, but all seemed 
deserted; and I saw not a human creature, nor heard any 
sound except that of the stream. I was, however, in a 
different country from the day before. The stony skele¬ 
ton of the world was here vigorously displayed to sun and 
air. The slopes were steep and changeful. Oak trees 
clung along the hills, well grown, wealthy in leaf, and 
touched by the autumn with strong and luminous colors. 



THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 253 


Here and there another stream would fall in from the 
right or the left, down a gorge of snow-white and tumul¬ 
tuary boulders. The river in the bottom (for it was 
rapidly growing a river, collecting on all hands as it 
trotted on its way) here foamed awhile in desperate rapids, 
and there lay in pools of the most enchanting sea green 
shot with watery browns. As far as I have gone, I have 
never seen a river of so changeful and delicate a hue; crys¬ 
tal was not more clear, the meadows were not by half so 
green; and at every pool I saw I felt a thrill of longing 
to be out of these hot, dusty, and material garments, and 
bathe my naked body in the mountain air and water. All 
the time as I went on I never forgot it was the Sabbath; 
the stillness was a perpetual reminder; and I heard in 
spirit the church bells clamoring all over Europe, and 
the psalms of a thousand churches. 

At length a human sound struck upon my ear — a cry 
strangely modulated between pathos and derision; and 
looking across the valley, I saw a little urchin sitting in a 
meadow, with his hands about his knees, and dwarfed to 
almost comical smallness by the distance. But the rogue 
had picked me out as I went down the road, from oak 
wood on to oak wood, driving Modestine; and he made 
me the compliments of the new country in this tremulous 
high-pitched salutation. And as all noises are lovely and 
natural at a sufficient distance, this also, coming through 
so much clean hill air and crossing all the green valley, 
sounded pleasant to my ear, and seemed a thing rustic, 
like the oaks or the river. 

A little after, the stream that I was following fell into 
the Tarn, at Pont de Montvert of bloody memory. 



Pont de Montvert 

































PONT DE MONTVERT 


One of the first things I encountered in Pont de Mont- 
vert was, if I remember rightly, the Protestant temple; 
but this was but the type of other novelties. A subtle 
atmosphere distinguishes a town in England from a town 
in France, or even in Scotland. At Carlisle you can see 
you are in one countryat Dumfries, thirty miles away, 
you are as sure that you are in the other. I should find 
it difficult to tell in what particulars Pont de Montvert 
differed from Monastier or Langogne, or even Bleymard; 
but the difference existed, and spoke eloquently to the 
eyes. The place, with its houses, its lanes, its glaring 
river bed, wore an indescribable air of the South. 

All was Sunday bustle in the streets and in the public 
house, as all had been Sabbath peace among the moun¬ 
tains. There must have been near a score of us at dinner 
by eleven before noon; and after I had eaten and drunken, 
and sat writing up my journal, I suppose as many more 
came dropping in one after another, or by twos and threes. 
In crossing the Lozere I had not only come among new 
natural features, but moved into the territory of a dif¬ 
ferent race. These people, as they hurriedly despatched 
their viands in an intricate swordplay of knives, ques¬ 
tioned and answered me with a degree of intelligence 
which excelled all that I had met, except among the rail¬ 
way folk at Chasserades. They had open telling faces, 
255 


256 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


and were lively both in speech and manner. They not 
only entered thoroughly into the spirit of my little trip, 
but more than one declared, if he were rich enough, he 
would like to set forth on such another. 

Even physically there was a pleasant change. I had 
not seen a pretty woman since I left Monastier, and 
there but one. Now of the three who sat down with me 
to dinner, one was certainly not beautiful — a poor timid 
thing of forty, quite troubled at this roaring table d’hote, 
whom I squired and helped to wine, and pledged and tried 
generally to encourage, with quite a contrary effect; but 
the other two, both married, were both more handsome 
than the average of women. And Clarisse? What shall 
I say of Clarisse? She waited the table with a heavy 
placable nonchalance, like a performing cow; her great 
grey eyes were steeped in amorous languor; her features, 
although fleshy, were of an original and accurate design; 
her mouth had a curl; her nostril spoke of dainty pride; 
her cheek fell, into strange and interesting lines. It was a 
face capable of strong emotion, and, with training, it 
offered the promise of delicate sentiment. It seemed piti¬ 
ful to see so good a model left to country admirers and a 
country way of thought. Beauty should at least have 
touched society, then, in a moment, it throws off a weight 
that lay upon it, it becomes conscious of itself, it puts on 
an elegance, learns a gait and a carriage of the head, and, 
in a moment, patet dea. Before I left I assured Clarisse 
of my hearty admiration. She took it like milk, without 
embarrassment or wonder, merely looking at me steadily 
with her great eyes; and I own the result upon myself 
was some confusion. If Clarisse could read English, I 


THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 257 


should not dare to add that her figure was unworthy of 
her face. Hers was a case for stays; but that may per¬ 
haps grow better as she gets up in years. 

Pont de Montvert, or Greenhill Bridge, as we might 
say at home, is a place memorable in the story of the 
Camisards. It was here that the war broke out; here 
that those southern Covenanters slew their Archbishop 
Sharpe. The persecution on the one hand, the febrile 
enthusiasm on the other, are almost equally difficult to 
understand in these quiet modern days, and with our easy 
modern beliefs and disbeliefs. The Protestants were one 
and all beside their right minds with zeal and sorrow. 
They were all prophets and prophetesses. Children at 
the breast would exhort their parents to good works. “ A 
child of fifteen months at Quissac spoke from its mother’s 
arms, agitated and sobbing, distinctly and with a loud 
voice.” Marshal Villars has seen a town where all the 
women “ seemed possessed by the devil,” and had trem¬ 
bling fits, and uttered prophecies publicly upon the streets. 
A prophetess of Vivarais was hanged at Montpellier be¬ 
cause blood flowed from her eyes and nose, and she 
declared that she was weeping tears of blood for the mis¬ 
fortunes of the Protestants. And it was not only women 
and children. Stalwart dangerous fellows, used to swing 
the sickle or to wield the forest axe, were likewise shaken 
with strange paroxysms, and spoke oracles with sobs and 
streaming tears. A persecution unsurpassed in violence 
had lasted near a score of years, and this was the result 
upon the persecuted; hanging, burning, breaking on the 
wheel, had been vain; the dragoons had left their hoof- 
marks over all the countryside; there were men rowing 


258 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


in the galleys, and women pining in the prisons of the 
Church; and not a thought was changed in the heart of 
any upright Protestant. 

Now the head and forefront of the persecution — after 
Lamoignon de Bavile — Francis de Langlade du Chayla 
(pronounced Chei'la), Archpriest of the Cevennes and In¬ 
spector of Missions in the same country, had a house in 
which he sometimes dwelt in the town of Pont de Mont- 
vert. He was a conscientious person, who seems to have 
been intended by nature for a pirate, and now fifty-five, 
an age by which a man has learned all the moderation of 
which he is capable. A missionary in his youth in China, 
he there suffered martyrdom, was left for dead, and only 
succored and brought back to life by the charity of a 
pariah. We must suppose the pariah devoid of second 
sight, and not purposely malicious in this act. Such an 
experience, it might be thought, would have cured a man 
of the desire to persecute; but the human spirit is a thing 
strangely put together; and, having been a Christian 
martyr, Du Chayla became a Christian persecutor. The 
Work of the Propagation of the Faith went roundly for¬ 
ward in his hands. His house in Pont de Mont vert 
served him as a prison. There he plucked out the hairs 
of the beard, and closed the hands of his prisoners upon 
live coals, to convince them that they were deceived in 
their opinions. And yet had not he himself tried and 
proved the inefficacy of these carnal arguments among 
the Buddhists in China ? 

Not only was life made intolerable in Languedoc, but 
flight was rigidly forbidden. One Massip, a muleteer, and 
well acquainted with the mountain paths, had already 


THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 259 


guided several troops of fugitives in safety to Geneva; 
and on him, with another convoy, consisting mostly of 
women dressed as men, Du Chayla, in an evil hour for 
himself, laid his hands. The Sunday following, there was 
a conventicle of Protestants in the woods of Altefage upon 
Mont Bouges ; where there stood up one Seguier — Spirit 
Seguier, as his companions called him — a wool carder, 
tall, black faced, and toothless, but a man full of prophecy. 
He declared, in the name of God, that the time for sub¬ 
mission had gone by, and they must betake themselves 
to arms for the deliverance of their brethren and the de¬ 
struction of the priests. 

The next night, 24th July, 1702, a sound disturbed the 
Inspector of Missions as he sat in his prison house at 
Pont de Montvert; the voices of many men upraised in 
psalmody drew nearer and nearer through the town. It 
was ten at night; he had his court about him, priests, 
soldiers, and servants, to the number of twelve or fifteen; 
and now dreading the insolence of a conventicle below his 
very windows, he ordered forth his soldiers to report. 
But the psalm singers were already at his door, fifty 
strong, led by the inspired Seguier, and breathing death. 
To their summons, the archpriest made answer like a 
stout old persecutor, and bade his garrison fire upon the 
mob. One Camisard (for, according to some, it was in 
this night’s work that they came by the name) fell at this 
discharge; his comrades burst in the door with hatchets 
and a beam of wood, overran the lower story of the house, 
set free the prisoners, and finding one of them in the vine, 
a sort of Scavenger’s Daughter of the place and period, 
redoubled in fury against Du Chayla, and sought by re- 


260 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


peated assaults to carry the upper floors. But he, on his 
side, had given absolution to his men, and they bravely 
held the staircase. 

“ Children of God,” cried the prophet, “ hold your hands. 
Let us burn the house, with the priest and the satellites 
of Baal.” 

The fire caught readily. Out of an upper window Du 
Chayla and his men lowered themselves into the garden 
by means of knotted sheets; some escaped across the 
river under the bullets of the insurgents; but the arch¬ 
priest himself fell, broke his thigh, and could only crawl 
into the hedge. What were his reflections as this second 
martyrdom drew near? A poor, brave, besotted, hateful 
man, who had done his duty resolutely according to his 
light both in the Cevennes and China. He found at least 
one telling word to say in his defence; for when the roof 
fell in and the upbursting flames discovered his retreat, 
and they came and dragged him to the public place 
of the town, raging and calling him damned — “If I be 
damned,” said he, “why should you also damn your¬ 
selves ? ” 

Here was a good reason for the last; but in the course 
of his inspectorship he had given many stronger which 
all told in a contrary direction; and these he was now to 
hear. One by one, Seguier first, the Camisards drew 
near and stabbed him. “This,” they said, “is for my 
father broken on the wheel. This for my brother in the 
galleys. That for my mother or my sister imprisoned in 
your cursed convents.” Each gave his blow and his 
reason; and then all kneeled and sang psalms around the 
body till the dawn. With the dawn, still singing, they 


THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 261 


defiled away towards Frugeres, farther up the Tarn, to 
pursue the work of vengeance, leaving Du Chayla’s 
prison house in ruins, and his body pierced with two-and- 
fifty wounds upon the public place. 

’Tis a wild night’s work, with its accompaniment of 
psalms; and it seems as if a psalm must always have a 
sound of threatening in that town upon the Tarn. But 
the story does not end, even so far as concerns Pont de 
Mont vert, with the departure of the Camisards. The 
career of Seguier was brief and bloody. Two more priests 
and a whole family at Ladeveze, from the father to the 
servants, fell by his hand or by his orders; and yet he 
was but a day or two at large, and restrained all the time 
by the presence of the soldiery. Taken at length by a 
famous soldier of fortune, Captain Poul, he appeared un¬ 
moved before his judges. 

“Your name?” they asked. 

“Pierre Seguier.” 

“Why are you called Spirit?” 

“Because the Spirit of the Lord is with me.” 

“Your domicile?” 

“Lately in the desert, and soon in heaven.” 

“ Have you no remorse for your crimes ? ” 

“ I have committed none. My soul is like a garden full 
of shelter and of fountains.” 

At Pont de Montvert, on the 12th of August, he had 
his right hand stricken from his body, and was burned 
alive. And his soul was like a garden ? So perhaps was 
the soul of Du Chayla, the Christian martyr. And per¬ 
haps if you could read in my soul, or I could read in yours, 
our own composure might seem little less surprising. 


262 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


Du Chayla’s house still stands, with a new roof, 
beside one of the bridges of the town; and if you are 
curious you may see the terrace garden into which he 
dropped. 


IN THE VALLEY OF THE TARN 

A new road leads from Pont de Montvert to Florae by 
the valley of the Tarn; a smooth sandy ledge, it runs 
about halfway between the summit of the cliffs and the 
river in the bottom of the valley; and I went in and out, 
as I followed it, from bays of shadow into promontories 
of afternoon sun. This was a pass like that of Killie- 
crankie; a deep turning gully in the hills, with the Tarn 
making a wonderful hoarse uproar far below, and craggy 
summits standing in the sunshine high above. A thin 
fringe of ash trees ran about the hilltops, like ivy on a 
ruin; but on the lower slopes and far up every glen the 
Spanish chestnut trees stood each foursquare to heaven 
under its tented foliage. Some were planted each on its 
own terrace, no larger than a bed; some, trusting in their 
roots, found strength to grow and prosper and be straight 
and large upon the rapid slopes of the valley; others, 
where there was a margin to the river, stood marshaled 
in a line and mighty like cedars of Lebanon. Yet even 
where they grew most thickly they were not to be thought 
of as a wood, but as a herd of stalwart individuals; and 
the dome of each tree stood forth separate and large, and 
as it were a little hill, from among the domes of its com¬ 
panions. They gave forth a faint sweet perfume which 
pervaded the air of the afternoon; autumn had put tints 
of gold and tarnish in the green; and the sun so shone 
263 


264 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


through and kindled the broad foliage, that each chestnut 
was relieved against another, not in shadow, but in 
light. A humble sketcher here laid down his pencil in 
despair. 

I wish I could convey a notion of the growth of these 
noble trees; of how they strike out boughs like the oak, 
and trail sprays of drooping foliage like the willow; of 
how they stand on upright fluted columns like the pillars 
of a church; or like the olive, from the most shattered 
bole can put out smooth and youthful shoots, and begin 
a new life upon the ruins of the old. Thus they partake 
of the nature of many different trees; and even their 
prickly topknots, seen near at hand against the sky, 
have a certain palm-like air that impresses the imagina¬ 
tion. But their individuality, although compounded of 
so many elements, is but the richer and the more original. 
And to look down upon a level filled with these knolls of 
foliage, or to see a clan of old unconquerable chestnuts 
cluster “ like herded elephants ” upon the spur of a moun¬ 
tain, is to rise to higher thoughts of the powers that are 
in Nature. 

Between Modestine’s laggard humor and the beauty 
of the scene, we made little progress all that afternoon; 
and at last finding the sun, although still far from setting, 
was already beginning to desert the narrow valley of the 
Tarn, I began to cast about for a place to camp in. This 
was not easy to find; the terraces were too narrow, and 
the ground, where it was unterraced, was usually too steep 
for a man to lie upon. I should have slipped all night, 
and awakened towards morning with my feet or my head 
in the river. 


THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 265 


After perhaps a mile, I saw, some sixty feet above the 
road, a little plateau large enough to hold my sack, and 
securely parapeted by the trunk of an aged and enormous 
chestnut. Thither, with infinite trouble I goaded and 
kicked the reluctant Modestine and there I hastened to 
unload her. There was only room for myself upon the 
plateau, and I had to go nearly as high again before I 
found so much as standing room for the ass. It was on a 
heap of rolling stones, on an artificial terrace, certainly 
not five feet square in all. Here I tied her to a chestnut, 
and having given her corn and bread and made a pile of 
chestnut leaves, of which I found her greedy, I descended 
once more to my own encampment. 

The position was unpleasantly exposed. One or two 
carts went by upon the road; and as long as daylight 
lasted I concealed myself, for all the world like a hunted 
Camisard, behind my fortification of vast chestnut trunk; 
for I was passionately afraid of discovery and the visit of 
jocular persons in the night. Moreover, I saw that I 
must be early awake; for these chestnut gardens had been 
the scene of industry no farther gone than on the day 
before. The slope was strewn with lopped branches, 
and here and there a great package of leaves was propped 
against a trunk; for even the leaves are serviceable, and 
the peasants use them in winter by way of fodder for their 
animals. I picked a meal in fear and trembling, half 
lying down to hide myself from the road; and I dare say 
I was as much concerned as if I had been a scout from 
Joani’s band above upon the Lozere or from Salomon’s 
across the Tarn in the old times of psalm singing and blood. 
Or, indeed, perhaps more; for the Camisards had a re- 


266 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


markable confidence in God; and a tale comes back into 
my memory of how the Count of Gevaudan, riding with a 
party of dragoons and a notary at his saddlebow to en¬ 
force the oath of fidelity in all the country hamlets, entered 
a valley in the woods, and found Cavalier and his men at 
dinner, gaily seated on the grass, and their hats crowned 
with box-tree garlands, while fifteen women washed their 
linen in the stream. Such was a field festival in 1703; 
at that date Antony Watteau would be painting similar 
subjects. 

This was a very different camp from that of the night 
before in the cool and silent pine woods. It was warm 
and even stifling in the valley. The shrill song of frogs, 
like the tremolo note of a whistle with a pea in it, rang 
up from the riverside before the sun was down. In the 
growing dusk, faint rustlings began to run to and fro 
among the fallen leaves; from time to time a faint chirp¬ 
ing or cheeping noise would fall upon my ear; and from 
time to time I thought I could see the movement of some¬ 
thing swift and indistinct between the chestnuts. A 
profusion of large ants swarmed upon the ground; bats 
whisked by, and mosquitoes droned overhead. The long 
boughs with their bunches of leaves hung against the sky 
like garlands; and those immediately above and around 
me had somewhat the air of a trellis which should have 
been wrecked and half overthrown in a gale of wind. 

Sleep for a long time fled my eyelids; and just as I 
was beginning to feel quiet stealing over my limbs, and 
settling densely on my mind, a noise at my head startled 
me broad awake again, and, I will frankly confess it, 
brought my heart into my mouth. It was such a noise 


THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 267 


as a person would make scratching loudly with a finger¬ 
nail, it came from under the knapsack which served me 
for a pillow, and it was thrice repeated before I had time 
to sit up and turn about. Nothing was to be seen, noth¬ 
ing more was to be heard, but a few of these mysterious 
rustlings far and near, and the ceaseless accompaniment 
of the river and the frogs. I learned next day that the 
chestnut gardens are infested by rats; rustling, chirping, 
and scraping were probably all due to these; but the puz¬ 
zle, for the moment, was insoluble, and I had to compose 
myself for sleep, as best I could, in wondering uncertainty 
about my neighbors. 

I was wakened in the grey of the morning (Monday, 
30th September) by the sound of footsteps not far off 
upon the stones, and opening my eyes, I beheld a peasant 
going by among the chestnuts by a footpath that I had 
not hitherto observed. He turned his head neither to the 
right nor to the left, and disappeared in a few strides 
among the foliage. Here was an escape! But it was 
plainly more than time to be moving. The peasantry 
were abroad; scarce less terrible to me in my nondescript 
position than the soldiers of Captain Poul to an un¬ 
daunted Camisard. I fed Modestine with what haste I 
could; but as I was returning to my sack, I saw a man 
and a boy come down the hillside in a direction crossing 
mine. They unintelligibly hailed me, and I replied with 
inarticulate but cheerful sounds, and hurried forward to 
get into my gaiters. 

The pair, who seemed to be father and son, came 
slowly up to the plateau, and stood close beside me for 
some time in silence. The bed was open, and I saw with 


268 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


regret my revolver lying patiently disclosed on the blue 
wool. At last, after they had looked me all over, and 
silence had grown laughably embarrassing, the man 
demanded in what seemed unfriendly tones : 

“You have slept here?” 

“Yes,” said I. “As you see.” 

“Why?” he asked. 

“My faith,” I answered lightly, “I was tired.” He 
next inquired where I was going and what I had had for 
dinner; and then, without the least transition, “C’est 
bien,” he added. “Come along.” And he and his son, 
without another word, turned off to the next chestnut 
tree but one, which they set to pruning. The thing had 
passed off more simply than I hoped. He was a grave, 
respectable man; and his unfriendly voice did not imply 
that he thought he was speaking to a criminal, but merely 
to an inferior. 

I was soon on the road, nibbling a cake of chocolate 
and seriously occupied with a case of conscience. Was I 
to pay for my night’s lodging? I had slept ill, the bed 
was full of fleas in the shape of ants, there was no water 
in the room, the very dawn had neglected to call me in 
the morning. I might have missed a train, had there been 
any in the neighborhood to catch. Clearly, I was dis¬ 
satisfied with my entertainment; and I decided I should 
not pay unless I met a beggar. 

The valley looked even lovelier by morning; and soon 
the road descended to the level of the river. Here, in 
a place where many straight and prosperous chestnuts 
stood together, making an aisle upon a swarded terrace, 
I made my morning toilet in the water of the Tarn. It 


THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 269 


was marvelously clear, thrillingly cool; the soapsuds dis¬ 
appeared as if by magic in the swift current, and the 
white boulders gave one a model for cleanliness. To wash 
in one of God’s rivers in the open air seems to me a sort 
of cheerful solemnity or semipagan act of worship. To 
dabble among dishes in a bedroom may perhaps make 
clean the body; but the imagination takes no share in 
such a cleansing. I went on with a light and peaceful 
heart, and sang psalms to the spiritual ear as I advanced. 

Suddenly up came an old woman, who point-blank 
demanded alms. 

“ Good ! ” thought I; “ here comes the waiter with the 
bill.” 

And I paid for my night’s lodging on the spot. Take 
it how you please, but this was the first and the last beggar 
that I met with during all my tour. 

A step or two farther I was overtaken by an old man 
in a brown nightcap, clear-eyed, weather-beaten, with a 
faint, excited smile. A little girl followed him, driving 
two sheep and a goat; but she kept in our wake, while 
the old man walked beside me and talked about the morn¬ 
ing and the valley. It was not much past six; and for 
healthy people who have slept enough, that is an hour of 
expansion and of open and trustful talk. 

“ Connaissez-vous le Seigneur?” he said at length. 

I asked him what Seigneur he meant; but he only re¬ 
peated the question with more emphasis and a look in his 
eyes denoting hope and interest. 

“Ah!” said I, pointing upwards, “I understand you, 
now. Yes, I know Him; He is the best of acquaintances.” 

The old man said he was delighted. " Hold,” he added, 


270 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


striking his bosom; “it makes me happy here.” There 
were a few who knew the Lord in these valleys, he went 
on to tell me; not many, but a few. “ Many are called,” 
he quoted, “ and few chosen.” 

“My father,” said I, “it is not easy to say who know 
the Lord; and it is none of our business. Protestants 
and Catholics, and even those who worship stones, may 
know Him and be known by Him; for He has made all.” 

I did not know I was so good a preacher. 

The old man assured me he thought as I did, and re¬ 
peated his expressions of pleasure at meeting me. “We 
are so few,” he said. “They call us Moravians here; 
but down in the department of Gard, where there are also 
a good number, they are called Derbists, after an English 
pastor.” 

I began to understand that I was figuring, in question¬ 
able taste, as a member of some sect to me unknown; 
but I was more pleased with the pleasure of my companion 
than embarrassed by my own equivocal position. Indeed 
I can see no dishonesty in not avowing a difference; and 
especially in these high matters, where we have all a suffi¬ 
cient assurance that, whoever may be in the wrong, we 
ourselves are not completely in the right. The truth is 
much talked about; but this old man in a brown nightcap 
showed himself so simple, sweet, and friendly that I am 
not unwilling to profess myself his convert. He was, as a 
matter of fact, a Plymouth Brother. Of what that in¬ 
volves in the way of doctrine I have no idea nor the time 
to inform myself; but I know right well that we are all 
embarked upon a troublesome world, the children of one 
Father, striving in many essential points to do and to 


THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 271 


become the same. And although it was somewhat in a 
mistake that he shook hands with me so often and showed 
himself so ready to receive my words, that was a mistake 
of the truth-finding sort. For charity begins blindfold; 
and only through a series of similar misapprehensions rises 
at length into a settled principle of love and patience, and 
a firm belief in all our fellow men. If I deceived this good 
old man, in the like manner I would willingly go on to 
deceive others. And if ever at length, out of our separate 
and sad ways, we should all come together into one com¬ 
mon house, I have a hope, to which I cling dearly, that my 
mountain Plymouth Brother will hasten to shake hands 
with me again. 

Thus, talking like Christian and Faithful by the way, 
he and I came down upon a hamlet by the Tarn. It was 
but a humble place, called La Vernede, with less than a 
dozen houses, and a Protestant chapel on a knoll. Here 
he dwelt; and here, at the inn, I ordered my breakfast. 
The inn was kept by an agreeable young man, a stone 
breaker on the road, and his sister, a pretty and engaging 
girl. The village schoolmaster dropped in to speak with 
the stranger. And these were all Protestants — a fact 
which pleased me more than I should have expected; 
and, what pleased me still more, they seemed all upright 
and simple people. The Plymouth Brother hung round 
me with a sort of yearning interest, and returned at least 
thrice to make sure I was enjoying my meal. His be¬ 
havior touched me deeply at the time, and even now 
moves me in recollection. He feared to intrude, but he 
would not willingly forego one moment of my society; 
and he seemed never weary of shaking me by the hand. 


272 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


When all the rest had drifted off to their day’s work, 
I sat for near half an hour with the young mistress of the 
house, who talked pleasantly over her seam of the chest¬ 
nut harvest, and the beauties of the Tarn, and old family 
affections, broken up when young folk go from home, yet 
still subsisting. Hers, I am sure, was a sweet nature, 
with a country plainness and much delicacy underneath; 
and he who takes her to his heart will doubtless be a for¬ 
tunate young man. 

The valley below La Vernede pleased me more and 
more as I went forward. Now the hills approached from 
either hand, naked and crumbling, and walled in the river 
between cliffs; and now the valley widened and became 
green. The road led me past the old castle of Miral on 
a steep ; past a battlemented monastery, long since broken 
up and turned into a church and parsonage; and past 
a cluster of black roofs, the village of Cocures, sitting 
among vineyards and meadows and orchards thick with 
red apples, and where, along the highway, they were 
knocking down walnuts from the roadside trees, and 
gathering them in sacks and baskets. The hills, however 
much the vale might open, were still tall and bare, with 
cliffy battlements and here and there a pointed summit; 
and the Tarn still rattled through the stones with a 
mountain noise. I had been led by bagmen of a pic¬ 
turesque turn of mind to expect a horrific country 
after the heart of Byron; but to my Scotch eyes it 
seemed smiling and plentiful, as the weather still gave 
an impression of high summer to my Scotch body; 
although the chestnuts were already picked out by the 
autumn, and the poplars, that here began to mingle with 


THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 273 


them, had turned into pale gold against the approach 
of winter. 

There was something in this landscape, smiling although 
wild, that explained to me the spirit of the Southern 
Covenanters. Those who took to the hills for conscience’ 
sake in Scotland had all gloomy and bedeviled thoughts; 
for once that they received God’s comfort they would 
be twice engaged with Satan; but the Camisards had 
only bright and supporting visions. They dealt much 
more in blood, both given and taken; yet I find no 
obsession of the Evil One in their records. With a light 
conscience, they pursued their life in these rough times 
and circumstances. The soul of Seguier, let us not for¬ 
get, was like a garden. They knew they were on God’s 
side, with a knowledge that has no parallel among the 
Scots; for the Scots, although they might be certain of 
the cause, could never rest confident of the person. 

“We flew,” says one old Camisard, “when we heard 
the sound of psalm singing, we flew as if with wings. We 
felt within us an animating ardor, a transporting desire. 
The feeling cannot be expressed in words. It is a thing 
that must have been experienced to be understood. How¬ 
ever weary we might be, we thought no more of our weari¬ 
ness and grew light, so soon as the psalms fell upon our 
ears.” 

The valley of the Tarn and the people whom I met at 
La Vernede not only explain to me this passage, but the 
twenty years of suffering which those, who were so stiff 
and so bloody when once they betook themselves to war, 
endured with the meekness of children and the constancy 
of saints and peasants. 


voter 



Florae 










































FLORAC 


On a branch of the Tarn stands Florae, the seat of a 
subprefecture, with an old castle, an alley of planes, 
many quaint street corners, and a live fountain welling 
from the hill. It is notable, besides, for handsome 
women, and as one of the two capitals, Alais being the 
other, of the country of the Camisards. 

The landlord of the inn took me, after I had eaten, to 
an adjoining cafe, where I, or rather my journey, became 
the topic of the afternoon. Every one had some sugges¬ 
tion for my guidance; and the subprefectorial map was 
fetched from the subprefecture itself, and much thumbed 
among coffee cups and glasses of liqueur. Most of these 
kind advisers were Protestant, though I observed that 
Protestant and Catholic intermingled in a very easy 
manner; and it surprised me to see what a lively memory 
still subsisted of the religious war. Among the hills of the 
southwest, by Mauchline, Cumnock, or Carsphairn, in 
isolated farms or in the manse, serious Presbyterian 
people still recall the days of the great persecution, and 
the graves of local martyrs are still piously regarded. 
But in towns and among the so-called better classes, I 
fear that these old doings have become an idle tale. If 
you met a mixed company in the King’s Arms at Wig¬ 
town, it is not likely that the talk would run on Covenant¬ 
ers. Nay, at Muirkirk of Glenluce, I found the beadle’s 
275 


276 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


wife had not so much as heard of Prophet Peden. But 
these Cevenols were proud of their ancestors in quite an¬ 
other sense; the war was their chosen topic; its exploits 
were their own patent of nobility; and where a man or a 
race has had but one adventure, and that heroic, we must 
expect and pardon some prolixity of reference. They 
told me the country was still full of legends hitherto 
uncollected; I heard from them about Cavalier’s descend¬ 
ants — not direct descendants, be it understood, but 
only cousins or nephews — who were still prosperous 
people in the scene of the boy-general’s exploits; and one 
farmer had seen the bones of old combatants dug up into 
the air of an afternoon in the nineteenth century, in a field 
where the ancestors had fought, and the great-grandchil¬ 
dren were peaceably ditching. 

Later in the day one of the Protestant pastors was so 
good as to visit me: a young man, intelligent and polite, 
with whom I passed an hour or two in talk. Florae, he 
told me, is part Protestant, part Catholic; and the dif¬ 
ference in religion is usually doubled by the difference in 
politics. You may judge of my surprise, coming as I did 
from such a babbling purgatorial Poland of a place as 
Monastier, when I learned that the population lived 
together on very quiet terms; and there was even an 
exchange of hospitalities between households thus doubly 
separated. Black Camisard and White Camisard, militia¬ 
man and Miquelet and dragoon, Protestant prophet and 
Catholic cadet of the White Cross, they had all been 
sabering and shooting, burning, pillaging, and murdering, 
their hearts hot with indignant passion; and here, after a 
hundred and seventy years, Protestant is still Protestant, 
Catholic still Catholic, in mutual toleration and mild 


THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 277 


amity of life. But the race of man, like that indom¬ 
itable nature whence it sprang, has medicating virtues 
of its own; the years and seasons bring various har¬ 
vests ; the sun returns after the rain; and mankind 
outlives secular animosities, as a single man awakens 
from the passions of a day. We judge our ancestors 
from a more divine position; and the dust being a 
little laid with several centuries, we can see both sides 
adorned with human virtues and fighting with a show of 
right. 

I have never thought it easy to be just, and find it daily 
even harder than I thought. I own I met these Protes¬ 
tants with delight and a sense of coming home. I was 
accustomed to speak their language, in another and deeper 
sense of the word than that which distinguishes between 
French and English; for the true babel is a divergence 
upon morals. And hence I could hold more free com¬ 
munication with the Protestants, and judge them more 
justly, than the Catholics. Father Apollinaris may pair 
off with my mountain Plymouth Brother as two guileless 
and devout old men; yet I ask myself if I had as ready 
a feeling for the virtues of the Trappist; or had I been a 
Catholic, if I should have felt so warmly to the dissenter 
of La Vernede. With the first I was on terms of mere 
forbearance; but with the other, although only on a mis¬ 
understanding and by keeping on selected points, it was 
still possible to hold converse and exchange some honest 
thoughts. In this world of imperfection we gladly wel¬ 
come even partial intimacies. If we find but one to whom 
we can speak out of our heart freely, with whom we can 
walk in love and simplicity without dissimulation, we 
have no ground of quarrel with the world or God. 


IN THE VALLEY OF THE MIMENTE 


On Tuesday, 1st October, we left Florae late in the after¬ 
noon, a tired donkey and tired donkey driver. A little 
way up the Tarnon, a covered bridge of wood introduced 
us into the valley of the Mimente. Steep rocky red moun¬ 
tains overhung the stream; great oaks and chestnuts 
grew upon the slopes or in stony terraces; here and there 
was a red field of millet or a few apple trees studded with 
red apples; and the road passed hard by two black ham¬ 
lets, one with an old castle atop to please the heart of the 
tourist. 

It was difficult here again to find a spot fit for my 
encampment. Even under the oaks and chestnuts the 
ground had not only a very rapid slope, but was heaped 
with loose stones; and where there was no timber the 
hills descended to the stream in a red precipice tufted with 
heather. The sun had left the highest peak in front of 
me, and the valley was full of the lowing sound of herds¬ 
men’s horns as they recalled the flocks into the stable, 
when I spied a bight of meadow some way below the 
roadway in an angle of the river. Thither I descended, 
and, tying Modestine provisionally to a tree, proceeded to 
investigate the neighborhood. A grey pearly evening 
shadow filled the glen; objects at a little distance grew 
indistinct and melted bafflingly into each other; and the 
darkness was rising steadily like an exhalation. I ap- 
278 


THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 279 


proached a great oak which grew in the meadow, hard 
by the river’s brink; when to my disgust the voices of 
children fell upon my ear, and I beheld a house round 
the angle on the other bank. I had half a mind to pack 
and be gone again, but the growing darkness moved me 
to remain. I had only to make no noise until the night 
was fairly come, and trust to the dawn to call me early 
in the morning. But it was hard to be annoyed by neigh¬ 
bors in such a great hotel. 

A hollow underneath the oak was my bed. Before I 
had fed Modestine and arranged my sack, three stars 
were already brightly shining, and the others were begin¬ 
ning dimly to appear. I slipped down to the river, 
which looked very black among its rocks, to fill my can; 
and dined with a good appetite in the dark, for I scrupled 
to light a lantern while so near a house. The moon, 
which I had seen, a pallid crescent, all afternoon, faintly 
illuminated the summit of the hills, but not a ray fell into 
the bottom of the glen where I was lying. The oak rose 
before me like a pillar of darkness; and overhead the 
heartsome stars were set in the face of the night. No 
one knows the stars who has not slept, as the French 
happily put in, a la belle etoile. He may know all their 
names and distances and magnitudes, and yet be ignorant 
of what alone concerns mankind, their serene and glad¬ 
some influence on the mind. The greater part of poetry 
is about the stars; and very justly, for they are them¬ 
selves the most classical of poets. These same far-away 
worlds, sprinkled like tapers or shaken together like a 
diamond dust upon the sky, had looked not otherwise to 
Roland or Cavalier, when, in the words of the latter, they 


280 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


had “no other tent but the sky, and no other bed than 
my mother earth.” 

All night a strong wind blew up the valley, and the 
acorns fell pattering over me from the oak. Yet, on this 
first night of October, the air was as mild as May, and I 
slept with the fur thrown back. 

I was much disturbed by the barking of a dog, an ani¬ 
mal that I fear more than any wolf. A dog is vastly 
braver, and is besides supported by the sense of duty. 
If you kill a wolf, you meet with encouragement and 
praise; but if you kill a dog, the sacred rights of property 
and the domestic affections come clamoring round you 
for redress. At the end of a fagging day, the sharp, cruel 
note of a dog’s bark is in itself a keen annoyance; and 
to a tramp like myself, he represents the sedentary and 
respectable world in its most hostile form. There is 
something of the clergyman or the lawyer about this 
engaging animal; and if he were not amenable to stones, 
the boldest man would shrink from traveling afoot. I 
respect dogs much in the domestic circle; but on the high¬ 
way or sleeping afield, I both detest and fear them. 

I was wakened next morning (Wednesday, October 2) 
by the same dog — for I knew his bark — making a 
charge down the bank, and then, seeing me sit up, re¬ 
treating again with great alacrity. The stars were not 
yet quite extinguished. The heaven was of that enchant¬ 
ing mild grey blue of the early morn. A still clear light 
began to fall, and the trees on the hillside were outlined 
sharply against the sky. The wind had veered more to 
the north, and no longer reached me in the glen; but as 
I was going on with my preparations, it drove a white 


THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 281 


cloud very swiftly over the hilltop; and looking up, I 
was surprised to see the cloud dyed with gold. In these 
high regions of the air, the sun was already shining as 
at noon. If only the clouds traveled high enough, we 
should see the same thing all night long. For it is always 
daylight in the fields of space. 

As I began to go up the valley, a draught of wind came 
down it out of the seat of the sunrise, although the clouds 
continued to run overhead in an almost contrary direc¬ 
tion. A few steps farther, and I saw a whole hillside gilded 
with the sun; and still a little beyond, between two peaks, 
a center of dazzling brilliancy appeared floating in the sky, 
and I was once more face to face with the big bonfire that 
occupies the kernel of our system. 

I met but one human being that forenoon, a dark 
military-looking wayfarer, who carried a game bag on a 
baldric; but he made a remark that seems worthy of 
record. For when I asked him if he were Protestant or 
Catholic- 

“ O,” said he, “ I make no shame of my religion. I am 
a Catholic.” 

He made no shame of it! The phrase is a piece of nat¬ 
ural statistics ; for it is the language of one in a minority. 
I thought with a smile of Bavile and his dragoons, and 
how you may ride roughshod over a religion for a cen¬ 
tury, and leave it only the more lively for the friction. 
Ireland is still Catholic; the Cevennes still Protestant. 
It is not a basketful of law papers, nor the hoofs and pistol- 
butts of a regiment of horse, that can change one tittle of 
a ploughman’s thoughts. Outdoor rustic people have not 
many ideas, but such as they have are hardy plants and 



282 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


thrive flourishingly in persecution. One who has grown 
a long while in the sweat of laborious noons, and under 
the stars at night, a frequenter of hills and forests, an old 
honest countryman, has, in the end, a sense of communion 
with the powers of the universe, and amicable relations 
toward his God. Like my mountain Plymouth Brother, 
he knows the Lord. His religion does not repose upon a 
choice of logic; it is the poetry of the man’s experience, 
the philosophy of the history of his life. God, like a great 
power, like a great shining sun, has appeared to this simple 
fellow in the course of years, and become the ground and 
essence of his least reflections ; and you may change creeds 
and dogmas by authority, or proclaim a new religion with 
the sound of trumpets, if you will; but here is a man who 
has his own thoughts, and will stubbornly adhere to them 
in good and evil. He is a Catholic, a Protestant, or a 
Plymouth Brother, in the same indefeasible sense that a 
man is not a woman, or a woman not a man. For he could 
not vary from his faith, unless he could eradicate all 
memory of the past, and, in a strict and not a conventional 
meaning, change his mind. 


THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY 


I was now drawing near to Cassagnas, a cluster of 
black roofs upon the hillside, in this wild valley, among 
chestnut gardens, and looked upon in the clear air by 
many rocky peaks. The road along the Mimente is yet 
new, nor have the mountaineers recovered their surprise 
when the first cart arrived at Cassagnas. But although 
it lay thus apart from the current of men’s business, this 
hamlet had already made a figure in the history of France. 
Hard by, in caverns of the mountain, was one of the five 
arsenals of the Camisards; where they laid up clothes 
and corn and arms against necessity, forged bayonets 
and sabers, and made themselves gunpowder with willow 
charcoal and saltpeter boiled in kettles. To the same 
caves, amid this multifarious industry, the sick and 
wounded were brought up to heal; and there they were 
visited by the two surgeons, Chabrier and Tavan, and 
secretly nursed by women of the neighborhood. 

Of the five legions into which the Camisards were 
divided, it was the oldest and the most obscure that had 
its magazines by Cassagnas. This was the band of 
Spirit Seguier; men who had joined their voices with his 
in the 68th Psalm as they marched down by night on the 
archpriest of the Cevennes. Seguier, promoted to heaven, 
was succeeded by Salomon Couderc, whom Cavalier 
treats in his memoirs as chaplain-general to the whole 
283 


284 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


army of the Camisards. He was a prophet; a great 
reader of the heart, who admitted people to the sacrament 
or refused them by “intentively viewing every man” 
between the eyes; and had the most of the Scriptures 
off by rote. And this was surely happy; since in a sur¬ 
prise in August, 1703, he lost his mule, his portfolios, and 
his Bible. It is only strange that they were not sur¬ 
prised more often and more effectually; for this legion 
of Cassagnas was truly patriarchal in its theory of war, 
and camped without sentries, leaving that duty to the 
angels of the God for whom they fought. This is a token, 
not only of their faith, but of the trackless country where 
they harbored. M. de Caladon, taking a stroll one fine 
day, walked without warning into their midst, as he 
might have walked into “a flock of sheep in a plain,” and 
found some asleep and some awake and psalm singing. 
A traitor had need of no recommendation to insinuate 
himself among their ranks, beyond “his faculty of sing¬ 
ing psalms”; and even the prophet Salomon “took him 
into a particular friendship.” Thus, among their intri¬ 
cate hills, the rustic troop subsisted; and history can 
attribute few exploits to them but sacraments and ec¬ 
stasies. 

People of this tough and simple stock will not, as I have 
just been saying, prove variable in religion; nor will they 
get nearer to apostasy than a mere external conformity 
like that of Naaman in the house of Rimmon. When 
Louis XVI, in the words of the edict, “convinced by the 
uselessness of a century of persecutions, and rather from 
necessity than sympathy,” granted at last a royal grace 
of toleration, Cassagnas was still Protestant; and to a 


THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 285 


man, it is so to this day. There is, indeed, one family 
that is not Protestant, but neither is it Catholic. It is 
that of a Catholic cure in revolt, who has taken to his 
bosom a schoolmistress. And his conduct, it’s worth 
noting, is disapproved by the Protestant villagers. 

“ It is a bad idea for a man,” said one, “ to go back from 
his engagements.” 

The villagers whom I saw seemed intelligent after a 
countrified fashion, and were all plain and dignified in 
manner. As a Protestant myself, I was well looked upon, 
and my acquaintance with history gained me further 
respect. For we had something not unlike a religious 
controversy at table, a gendarme and a merchant with 
whom I dined being both strangers to the place and 
Catholics. The young men of the house stood round and 
supported me; and the whole discussion was tolerantly 
conducted, and surprised a man brought up among the 
infinitesimal and contentious differences of Scotland. 
The merchant, indeed, grew a little warm, and was far 
less pleased than some others with my historical acquire¬ 
ments. But the gendarme was mighty easy over it all. 

“It’s a bad idea for a man to change,” said he; and 
the remark was generally applauded. 

That was not the opinion of the priest and soldier at 
our Lady of the Snows. But this is a different race; and 
perhaps the same great-heartedness that upheld them to 
resist, now enables them to differ in a kind spirit. For 
courage respects courage; but where a faith has been 
trodden out, we may look for a mean and narrow popu¬ 
lation. The true work of Bruce and Wallace was the 
union of the nations; not that they should stand apart 


286 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


awhile longer, skirmishing upon their borders; but that, 
when the time came, they might unite with self-respect. 
The merchant was much interested in my journey, and 
thought it dangerous to sleep afield. 

“ There are the wolves,” said he; “ and then it is known 
you are an Englishman. The English have always long 
purses, and it might very well enter into some one’s head 
to deal you an ill blow some night.” 

I told him I was not much afraid of such accidents; 
and at any rate judged it unwise to dwell upon alarms 
or consider small perils in the arrangement of life. Life 
itself, I submitted, was a far too risky business as a whole 
to make each additional particular of danger worth regard. 
“Something,” said I, “might burst in your inside any 
day of the week, and there would be an end of you, if you 
were locked into your room with three turns of the key.” 

“Cependant,” said he, “coucher dehors!” 

“God,” said I, “is everywhere.” 

“Cependant, coucher dehors!” he repeated, and his 
voice was eloquent of terror. 

He was the only person, in all my voyage, who saw any¬ 
thing hardy in so simple a proceeding; although many 
considered it superfluous. Only one, on the other hand, 
professed much delight in the idea; and that was my 
Plymouth Brother, who cried out, when I told him I some¬ 
times preferred sleeping under the stars to a close and noisy 
alehouse, “Now I see that you know the Lord!” 

The merchant asked me for one of my cards as I was 
leaving, for he said I should be something to talk of in 
the future, and desired me to make a note of his request 
and reason; a desire with which I have thus complied. 


THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 287 


A little after two I struck across the Mimente, and took 
a rugged path southward up a hillside covered with loose 
stones and tufts of heather. At the top, as is the habit of 
the country, the path disappeared; and I left my she-ass 
munching heather, and went forward alone to seek a 
road. 

I was now on the separation of two vast watersheds; 
behind me all the streams were bound for the Garonne 
and the Western Ocean; before me was the basin of the 
Rhone. Hence, as from the Lozere, you can see in clear 
weather the shining of the Gulf of Lyons; and perhaps 
from here the soldiers of Salomon may have watched for 
the topsails of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, and the long- 
promised aid from England. You may take this ridge 
as lying in the heart of the country of the Camisards; 
four of the five legions camped all round it and almost 
within view — Salomon and Joani to the north, Castanet 
and Roland to the south; and when Julein had finished 
his famous work, the devastation of the High Cevennes, 
which lasted all through October and November, 1703, 
and during which four hundred and sixty villages and ham¬ 
lets were, with fire and pickaxe, utterly subverted, a man 
standing on this eminence would have looked forth upon 
a silent, smokeless, and dispeopled land. Time and man’s 
activity have now repaired these ruins; Cassagnas is 
once more roofed and sending up domestic smoke; and 
in the chestnut gardens, in low and leafy corners, many a 
prosperous farmer returns, when the day’s work is done, 
to his children and bright hearth. And still it was per¬ 
haps the wildest view of all my journey. Peak upon peak, 
chain upon chain of hills ran surging southward, chan- 


288 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


neled and sculptured by the winter streams, feathered 
from head to foot with chestnuts, and here and there 
breaking out into a coronal of cliffs. The sun, which was 
still far from setting, sent a drift of misty gold across the 
hilltops, but the valleys were already plunged in a pro¬ 
found and quiet shadow. 

A very old shepherd, hobbling on a pair of sticks, and 
wearing a black cap of liberty, as if in honor of his near¬ 
ness to the grave, directed me to the road for St. Germain 
de Calberte. There was something solemn in the isola¬ 
tion of this infirm and ancient creature. Where he dwelt, 
how he got upon this high ridge, or how he proposed to 
get down again, were more than I could fancy. Not far 
off upon my right was the famous Plan de Font Morte, 
where Poul with his Armenian saber slashed down the 
Camisards of Seguier. This, methought, might be some 
Rip van Winkle of the war, who had lost his comrades, 
fleeing before Poul, and wandered ever since upon the 
mountains. It might be news to him that Cavalier had 
surrendered, or Roland had fallen fighting with his back 
against an olive. And while I was thus working on my 
fancy, I heard him hailing in broken tones, and saw him 
waving me to come back with one of his two sticks. I 
had already got some way past him; but, leaving Modes- 
tine once more, retraced my steps. 

Alas, it was a very commonplace affair. The old 
gentleman had forgot to ask the pedlar what he sold, and 
wished to remedy this neglect. 

I told him sternly, “ Nothing.” 

“Nothing?” cried he. 

I repeated “ Nothing,” and made off. 


THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 289 


It’s odd to think of, but perhaps I thus became as inex¬ 
plicable to the old man as he had been to me. 

The road lay under chestnuts, and though I saw a ham¬ 
let or two below me in the vale, and many lone houses of 
the chestnut farmers, it was a very solitary march all after¬ 
noon ; and the evening began early underneath the trees. 
But I heard the voice of a woman singing some sad, old, 
endless ballad not far off. It seemed to be about love and 
a bcl amoureux, her handsome sweetheart; and I wished 
I could have taken up the strain and answered her, as I 
went on upon my invisible woodland way, weaving, like 
Pippa in the poem, my own thoughts with hers. What 
could I have told her ? Little enough; and yet all the 
heart requires. How the; world gives and takes away, 
and brings sweethearts near, only to separate them again 
into distant and strange lands; but to love is the great 
amulet which makes the world a garden; and “ hope, 
which comes to all,” outwears the accidents of life, and 
reaches with tremulous hand beyond the grave and death. 
Easy to say: yea, but also, by God’s mercy, both easy 
and grateful to believe ! 

We struck at last into a wide white highroad, carpeted 
with noiseless dust. The night had come; the moon had 
been shining for a long while upon the opposite moun¬ 
tain ; when on turning a corner my donkey and I issued 
ourselves into her light. I had emptied out my brandy 
at Florae, for I could bear the stuff no longer, and 
replaced it with some generous and scented Volnay; and 
now I drank to the moon’s sacred majesty upon the road. 
It was but a couple of mouthfuls; yet I became thence¬ 
forth unconscious of my limbs, and my blood flowed with 


290 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


luxury. Even Modestine was inspired by this purified 
nocturnal sunshine, and bestirred her little hoofs as to a 
livelier measure. The road wound and descended swiftly 
among masses of chestnuts. Hot dust rose from our feet 
and flowed away. Our two shadows — mine deformed 
with the knapsack, hers comically bestridden by the pack 
— now lay before us clearly outlined on the road, and 
now, as we turned a corner, went off into the ghostly dis¬ 
tance, and sailed along the mountainlike clouds. From 
time to time a warm wind rustled down the valley, and 
set all the chestnuts dangling their bunches of foliage and 
fruit; the ear was filled with whispering music, and the 
shadows danced in tune. And next moment the breeze 
had gone by, and in all the valley nothing moved except 
our traveling feet. On the opposite slope, the monstrous 
ribs and gullies of the mountain were faintly designed in 
the moonshine; and high overhead, in some lone house, 
there burned one lighted window, one square spark of red 
in the huge field of sad nocturnal coloring. 

At a certain point, as I went downward, turning many 
acute angles, the moon disappeared behind the hill; and 
I pursued my way in great darkness, until another turn¬ 
ing shot me without preparation into St. Germain de 
Calberte. The place was asleep and silent, and buried in 
opaque night. Only from a single open door, some lamp¬ 
light escaped upon the road to show me I was come among 
men’s habitations. The two last gossips of the evening, 
still talking by a garden wall, directed me to the inn. The 
landlady was getting her chicks to bed; the fire was 
already out, and had, not without grumbling, to be 
rekindled; half an hour later, and I must have gone 
supperless to roost. 


THE LAST DAY 


When I awoke (Thursday, 3d October), and, hearing a 
great flourishing of cocks and chuckling of contented hens, 
betook me to the window of the clean and comfortable 
room where I had slept the night, I looked forth on a sun¬ 
shiny morning in a deep vale of chestnut gardens. It was 
still early, and the cockcrows, and the slanting lights, 
and the long shadows encouraged me to be out and look 
round me. 

St. Germain de Calberte is a great parish nine leagues 
round about. At the period of the wars, and immediately 
before the devastation, it was inhabited by two hundred 
and seventy-five families, of which only nine were Catholic, 
and it took the cure seventeen September days to go from 
house to house on horseback for a census. But the place 
itself, although capital of a canton, is scarce larger than 
a hamlet. It lies terraced across a steep slope in the midst 
of mighty chestnuts. The Protestant chapel stands below 
upon a shoulder; in the midst of the town is the quaint 
old Catholic church. 

It was here that poor Du Chayla, the Christian martyr, 
kept his library and held a court of missionaries; here he 
had built his tomb, thinking to lie among a grateful popu¬ 
lation whom he had redeemed from error; and hither 
on the morrow of his death they brought the body, pierced 
with two-and-fifty wounds, to be interred. Clad in his 
291 


292 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


priestly robes, he was laid out in state in the church. The 
cure , taking his text from Second Samuel, twentieth chap¬ 
ter and twelfth verse, “ And Amasa wallowed in his blood 
in the highway,” preached a rousing sermon, and exhorted 
his brethren to die each at his post, like their unhappy 
and illustrious superior. In the midst of this eloquence 
there came a breeze that Spirit Seguier was near at hand; 
and behold! all the assembly took to their horses’ heels, 
some east, some west, and the cure himself as far as Alais. 

Strange was the position of this little Catholic metrop¬ 
olis, a thimbleful of Rome, in such a wild and contrary 
neighborhood. On the one hand, the legion of Salomon 
overlooked it from Cassagnas; on the other, it was cut 
off from assistance by the legion of Roland at Mialet. The 
cure, Louvrelenil, although he took a panic at the arch¬ 
priest’s funeral, and so hurriedly decamped to Alais, stood 
well by his isolated pulpit, and thence uttered fulminations 
against the crimes of the Protestants. Salomon besieged 
the village for an hour and a half, but was beat back. The 
militiamen, on guard before the cures door, could be heard, 
in the black hours, singing Protestant psalms and holding 
friendly talk with the insurgents. And in the morning, 
although not a shot had been fired, there would not be a 
round of powder in their flasks. Where was it gone ? All 
handed over to the Camisards for a consideration. Un- 
trusty guardians for an isolated priest! 

That these continual stirs were once busy in St. Ger¬ 
main de Calberte, the imagination with difficulty re¬ 
ceives ; all is now so quiet, the pulse of human life now 
beats so low and still in this hamlet of the mountains. 
Boys followed me a great way off, like a timid sort of lion- 


THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 293 


hunters; and people turned round to have a second look, 
or came out of their houses, as I went by. My passage 
was the first event, you would have fancied, since the Cami- 
sards. There was nothing rude or forward in this obser¬ 
vation ; it was but a pleased and wondering scrutiny, like 
that of oxen or the human infant; yet it wearied my 
spirits, and soon drove me from the street. 

I took refuge on the terraces, which are here greenly 
carpeted with sward, and tried to imitate with a pencil 
the inimitable attitudes of the chestnuts as they bear up 
their canopy of leaves. Ever and again a little wind went 
by, and the nuts dropped all around me, with a light and 
dull sound, upon the sward. The noise was as of a thin 
fall of great hailstones; but there went with it a cheerful 
human sentiment of an approaching harvest and farmers 
rejoicing in their gains. Looking up, I could see the brown 
nut peering through the husk, which was already gaping; 
and between the stems the eye embraced an amphitheater 
of hill, sunlit and green with leaves. 

I have not often enjoyed a place more deeply. I 
moved in an atmosphere of pleasure, and felt light and 
quiet and content. But perhaps it was not the place 
alone that so disposed my spirit. Perhaps some one was 
thinking of me in another country; or perhaps some 
thought of my own had come and gone unnoticed, and 
yet done me good. For some thoughts, which sure would 
be the most beautiful, vanish before we can rightly scan 
their features; as though a god, traveling by our green 
highways, should but ope the door, give one smiling look 
into the house, and go again forever. Was it Apollo, or 
Mercury, or Love with folded wings? Who shall say? 


294 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


But we go the lighter about our business, and feel peace 
and pleasure in our hearts. 

I dined with a pair of Catholics. They agreed in the 
condemnation of a young man, a Catholic, who had 
married a Protestant girl and gone over to the religion 
of his wife. A Protestant born they could understand 
and respect; indeed, they seemed to be of the mind of 
an old Catholic woman, who told me that same day there 
was no difference between the two sects, save that “ wrong 
was more wrong for the Catholic,” who had more light 
and guidance; but this of a man’s desertion filled them 
with contempt. 

“ It is a bad idea for a man to change,” said one. 

It may have been accidental, but you see how this 
phrase pursued me; and for myself, I believe it is the 
current philosophy in these parts. I have some diffi¬ 
culty in imagining a better. It’s not only a great flight 
of confidence for a man to change his creed and go out 
of his family for heaven’s sake; but the odds are — nay 
and the hope is — that, with all this great transition in 
the eyes of man, he has not changed himself a hair’s- 
breadth to the eyes of God. Honor to those who do so, 
for the wrench is sore. But it argues something narrow, 
whether of strength or weakness, whether of the prophet 
or the fool, in those who can take a sufficient interest in 
such infinitesimal and human operations, or who can quit 
a friendship for a doubtful process of the mind. And I 
think I should not leave my old creed for another, chang¬ 
ing only words for other words; but by some brave read¬ 
ing, embrace it in spirit and truth, and find wrong as wrong 
for me as for the best of other communions. 


THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 295 


The phylloxera was in the neighborhood; and instead 
of wine we drank at dinner a more economical juice of 
the grape — la Parisienne, they call it. It is made by 
putting the fruit whole into a cask of water; one by one 
the berries ferment and burst; what is drunk during the 
day is supplied at night in water; so, with ever another 
pitcher from the well, and ever another grape exploding 
and giving out its strength, one cask of Parisienne may 
last a family till spring. It is, as the reader will antici¬ 
pate, a feeble beverage, but very pleasant to the taste. 

What with dinner and coffee, it was long past three 
before I left St. Germain de Calberte. I went down 
beside the Gardon of Mialet, a great glaring watercourse 
devoid of water, and through St. Etienne de Vallee Fran¬ 
chise, or Val Francesque, as they used to call it; and 
towards evening began to ascend the hill of St. Pierre. 
It was a long and steep ascent. Behind me an empty 
carriage returning to St. Jean du Gard kept hard upon 
my tracks, and near the summit overtook me. The 
driver, like the rest of the world, was sure I was a pedlar; 
but, unlike others, he was sure of what I had to sell. He 
had noticed the blue wool which hung out of my pack at 
either end; and from this he had decided, beyond my 
power to alter his decision, that I dealt in blue-wool col¬ 
lars, such as decorate the neck of the French draught 
horse. 

I had hurried to the topmost powers of Modes tine, for 
I dearly desired to see the view upon the other side before 
the day had faded. But it was night when I reached the 
summit; the moon was riding high and clear; and only 
a few grey streaks of twilight lingered in the west. A 


296 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


yawning valley, gulfed in blackness, lay like a hole in 
created Nature at my feet; but the outline of the hills 
was sharp against the sky. There was Mount Aigoal, 
the stronghold of Castanet. And Castanet, not only as 
an active undertaking leader, deserves some mention 
among Camisards; for there is a spray of rose among his 
laurel; and he showed how, even in a public tragedy, 
love will have its way. In the high tide of war he married, 
in his mountain citadel, a young and pretty lass called 
Mariette. There were great rejoicings; and the bride¬ 
groom released five-and-twenty prisoners in honor of 
the glad event. Seven months afterwards Mariette, the 
Princess of the Cevennes, as they called her in derision, 
fell into the hands of the authorities, where it was like 
to have gone hard with her. But Castanet was a man of 
execution, and loved his wife. He fell on Valleraugue, 
and got a lady there for a hostage; and for the first and 
last time in that war there was an exchange of prisoners. 
Their daughter, pledge of some starry night upon Mount 
Aigoal, has left descendants to this day. 

Modestine and I — it was our last meal together — 
had a snack upon the top of St. Pierre, I on a heap of stones, 
she standing by me in the moonlight and decorously eat¬ 
ing bread out of my hand. The poor brute would eat 
more heartily in this manner; for she had a sort of affec¬ 
tion for me, which I was soon to betray. 

It was a long descent upon St. Jean du Gard, and we 
met no one but a carter, visible afar off by the glint of 
the moon on his extinguished lantern. 

Before ten o’clock we had got in and were at supper; 
fifteen miles and a stiff hill in little beyond six hours! 


FAREWELL, MODESTINE 


On examination, on the morning of October 4, Mo¬ 
des tine was pronounced unfit for travel. She would 
need at least two days’ repose according to the ostler; 
but I was now eager to reach Alais for my letters; and, 
being in a civilized country of stagecoaches, I determined 
to sell my lady friend and be off by the diligence that after¬ 
noon. Our yesterday’s march, with the testimony of the 
driver who had pursued us up the long hill of St. Pierre, 
spread a favorable notion of my donkey’s capabilities. 
Intending purchasers were aware of an unrivaled oppor¬ 
tunity. Before ten I had an offer of twenty-five francs; 
and before noon, after a desperate engagement, I sold her, 
saddle and all, for five-and-thirty. The pecuniary gain is 
not obvious, but I had bought freedom into the bargain. 

St. Jean du Gard is a large place and largely Protestant. 
The maire, a Protestant, asked me to help him in a small 
matter which is itself characteristic of the country. The 
young women of the Cevennes profit by the common reli¬ 
gion and the difference of the language to go largely as 
governesses into England; and here was one, a native of 
Mialet, struggling with English circulars from two different 
agencies in London. I gave what help I could; and vol¬ 
unteered some advice, which struck me as being excellent. 

One thing more I note. The phylloxera has ravaged 
the vineyards in this neighborhood; and in the early 
297 


298 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 


morning, under some chestnuts by the river, I found a 
party of men working with a cider press. I could not 
at first make out what they were after, and asked one fel¬ 
low to explain. 

“Making cider,” he said. “Oui , c’est comme $a. 
Comme dans le nord !” 

There was a ring of sarcasm in his voice; the country 
was going to the devil. 

It was not until I was fairly seated by the driver, and 
rattling through a rocky valley with dwarf olives, that 
I became aware of my bereavement. I had lost Modes- 
tine. Up to that moment I had thought I hated her; 
but now she was gone, 

“And, O, 

The difference to me! ” 

For twelve days we had been fast companions; we 
had traveled upwards of a hundred and twenty miles, 
crossed several respectable ridges, and jogged along with 
our six legs by many a rocky and many a boggy byroad. 
After the first day, although sometimes I was hurt and 
distant in manner, I still kept my patience; and as for 
her, poor soul! she had come to regard me as a god. She 
loved to eat out of my hand. She was patient, elegant 
in form, the color of an ideal mouse, and inimitably small. 
Her faults were those of her race and sex; her virtues were 
her own. Farewell, and if for ever- 

Father Adam wept when he sold her to me ; after I had 
sold her in my turn, I was tempted to follow his example; 
and being alone with a stage driver and four or five agree¬ 
able young men, I did not hesitate to yield to my emotion. 


NOTES 

AN INLAND VOYAGE 

2. Sir Walter Grindlay Simpson: Baronet. See page xii of 
Introduction. 

7. Cigarette: Stevenson named Sir Walter Simpson’s canoe 
after his own chief delight. He also nicknamed his friend the 
same. 

Arethusa: the name of Stevenson’s own canoe. Arethusa 
was a mountain nymph of Greece who, pursued by the river-god, 
Alpheus, was changed into a fountain; she darted under the sea 
and came up in Sicily. Stevenson may have had in mind the 
poem “ Arethusa ” by Shelley : 

“ And sliding and springing, 

She went, ever singing, 

In murmurs as soft as sleep.” 

9. tricolor : red, white, and blue of France. 

bagman : a commercial traveler. 

10. barnacled : with spectacles — evidently because the 
Scotch stuck them hard to the nose like the barnacles on a ship’s 
hull. 

Miss Howe and Miss Harlowe : eighteenth-century heroines, 
whose letters make up the novel Clarissa Harlowe of Richard¬ 
son’s. 

huntress : Diana, the goddess of the hunt. 

Anthony: Saint Anthony, 251-356, a hermit who lived in a 
sepulcher on the desert and was sorely tempted by the devil. 

gymnosophist : one of a sect of Hindu philosophers who lived 
naked in the wilderness, ate no meat, and addicted themselves 
entirely to mystic philosophy. They were supposed to be able 
to rise on the air — a feat called levitation. 

12. Willebroek Canal: Brussels is located on this waterway. 

299 


300 


NOTES 


It connects the Sambre River with the Rupel, an arm of the 
Scheldt. 

“ Cest vite , mais c'est long ”: “ You are going fast, but you have 
a long trip.” 

dingy: a small rowboat or yacht tender. 

14. Villevorde: the seat of an old castle that gave refuge to 
the dukes of Brabant. 

Etna cooking apparatus: a kind of chafing dish with an alcohol 
burner. 

a la papier: in paper. 

15. loo-warm: lukewarm. 

fricassee: a dish made by cutting meat into small pieces and 
stewing with gravy in a skillet. 

16. sterlings : starlings, piles driven around piers of a bridge 
for support. 

trepanned: to perforate the skull with a trepan so as to relieve 
the brain of pressure. 

18. Laeken: a town north of Brussels, now practically a part 
of the city. 

Allee Verte: literally, “ green lane ” ; refers to the limes which 
line the banks of the canal. 

estaminet: an inn; what the English call a “ pub.” 

19. Royal Sport Nautique: Royal Nautical Sport: Belgian 
boating men. 

Huguenots: French Protestants who, after a century of perse¬ 
cution following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes issued 
under Louis XIV, finally left France for countries friendly to 
their religious form of worship. 

20. entre freres: among brothers. 

“ En Angleterre , vous employez des sliding-seats , n } est-ce 
pas? ” : “In England you use sliding seats — do you not? ” 

“ voyez-vous , nous sommes serieux ” : “ you see, we are in 
earnest.” 

21. Mammon: a fallen angel, the god of gold who even 
in Heaven had gazed upon Heaven’s pavement. He it was 
who built Pandemonium in Hell. Milton’s Paradise Lost , I, 
679-680. 


NOTES 


301 


22. Judaea: “ a prophet is not without honor save in his own 
country.” Matthew XIII, 57. 

23. drive the coursers of the sun: Phaethon, son of Apollo, 
begged his father that he might drive the coursers of the sun for 
one day, which he did to his own destruction. 

25. Maubeuge : a fortress town with a nunnery and mon¬ 
astery founded in the seventh century. 

Charleroi : a manufacturing town and fortress which was 
founded by Charles II of Spain in 1666. 

Murray : a guidebook of Stevenson’s time. 

26. knolled to church and sat at good men’s feasts : 

u If ever you have look’d on better days, 

If ever been where bells have knoll’d to church, 

If ever sat at any good man’s feast,” 

Orlando, As You Like It, II, vii, 113-115. 

Grand Cerf: “ Great Stag,” a favorite name for an inn in 
France or England. 

27. cxnacula: upper rooms where suppers were served; hence 
suppers; here the secret mystic rites of the Masons. 

28. Drake : Sir Francis Drake. 

29. Church of England: this shows the Scotch Puritan preju¬ 
dice against the Anglican or Episcopal Church. 

30. time bills: time-tables. 

pollards: trees that have been cut off a few feet from the 
ground and have grown bushy heads. 

Hautmont : an industrial town. 

33. Hainaulters: residents of a Belgian border province 
through which the Sambre flows. 

35. sabots : a kind of wooden shoe worn by the peasantry in 
various countries of Europe. 

amphora: originally the tall, two-handled jar used by the 
Greeks and Romans for wine; now any large jug or vase. 

sward: turf. 

caparison : gorgeous trappings for a horse in the days of knight¬ 
hood. 


302 


NOTES 


36. Bluebeard: nickname for the mythical Chevalier Raoul 
who killed his wives. 

Jove : ruler of the gods who frequently left Olympus for adven¬ 
tures on earth in various disguises. 

37. hinds: country laborers. 

39. hold : the central castle of a town used as the last line of 
defense and also as a prison. 

auberge: tavern. 

41. swipes : small beer. 

Lucretian: the Roman poet, Lucretius, of the first century 
b.c., an Epicurean in philosophy. Lucretius said it was sweet 
to view on land the toils of others — because man is glad to know 
himself secure. His maxims did him little good, for he is said 
to have died a raving maniac. 

42. Landau : a four-wheeled carriage with the top divided so 
that the vehicle can be used open. 

43. Moliere’s farce: The Affected Ladies, Sc. XIV. The 
rejected noble lovers find their ladies being wooed by their valets 
in the disguise of nobles. 

flibbertigibbet: a chatterer or gossiper. 

kepi: a military cap, having a flat top sloping to the front, and 
a visor. 

44. galette : a cookie. 

48. Landrecies: an ancient fortress on the banks of the 
Sambre. 

“ Voila de Veau pour vous debarbouiller ” ; “ There is water 
to wash your faces.” 

Waterloo crackers : “ fire crackers,” to commemorate Napo¬ 
leon’s defeat at the hands of the English in 1815. 

Austerlitz : scene of the French victory over the Austrians and 
Russians in 1805. 

Southampton : one of the main terminal ports for boats crossing 
the English Channel from France. 

Waterloo Bridge : a bridge over the Thames dedicated on the 
second anniversary of the battle. Whistler painted a beautiful 
picture of one arch of this bridge. 

49. Mormal: suggesting “ Mors ” or death. 


NOTES 


303 


50. Reformation : Protestant movement led by Martin Luther 
in the sixteenth century. 

Heine: the great German poet and essayist of the eighteenth 
century, who wrote a description of a walking trip through the 
Harz Mountains. 

Merlin: the enchanter of King Arthur’s court who made the 
mystic Round Table. In his old age he was so fascinated by 
beautiful Vivian that he told his secrets to her and was left in an 
everlasting sleep in a hollow oak in the forest of Broceliande. 

banyan: an East Indian fig tree, the branches of which send 
out abnormal roots into the ground, causing the foliage to spread 
over a wide area. 

51. jeremiads : lamentations like those uttered by the Hebrew 
prophet, Jeremiah. 

54. bedlamite : from the nickname of the inmates of the hos¬ 
pital of St. Mary of Bethlehem for the insane, in London. 

Marshal Clarke: Henri Jacques Guillaume Clarke, a close 
friend of Napoleon, who made him Marshal of France during the 
First Empire. 

55. reveilles: the drum signal at sunrise, to summon soldiers 
to their duties. 

costermongers : street pedlars. 

presumptuous Hebrew prophets : Balaam smote the ass three 
times when the ass was stopped in its way by the Angel of the 
Lord. Finally, after all his bravado, he had to apologize for his 
actions both to the ass and to the angel that he finally recognized. 
Numbers XXII, 21-36. 

heights of Alma: a river in the Crimea, Russia, where the 
British, French, and Turks defeated the Russians in 1854. 

Spicheren : a village in Lorraine where the Germans defeated 
the French in the war of 1870. 

56. tuck: stroke. 

bastinadoing: from the Oriental punishment of beating an 
offender on the soles of his feet; here beating with a cudgel. 

57. Juge de Paix: justice of the peace. 

Scotch Sheriff Substitute: though only an assistant, yet he 
discharges most of the duties of sheriff. 


304 


NOTES 


59. jerkin of Archangel tar : coat of black pitch made in Arch¬ 
angel, Russia. 

Loch Caron: an inlet on the west coast of Scotland where 
Stevenson had just visited his friend, Professor Fleeming Jenkin. 

61. flageolet : a flute-like instrument. 

63. Hollandais: a Dutch canary. 

64. canaletti: little canals; here Stevenson means those 
living on canal barges. 

“ Cependant ”: “ Yet.” 

67. colza : coleseed, which is raised for its oil. 

catholic: liberal. 

shivering of the reeds : Syrinx, a follower of Diana, was changed 
into a tuft of reeds when pursued by Pan, the god of the shepherds. 
He was so charmed by her sigh in the shivering of the reeds that 
he made a musical instrument out of some of them and named it 
“ Syrinx ” in her honor. 

acold ( a-cold ): a frequent expression of “ cold ” in Shake¬ 
speare. 

68. Centaur: in Greek mythology a creature half horse, half 
man, and a dangerous pursuer of the nymphs. 

69. filcher : thief. 

per annum : by the year. 

a toy: Burns who had just ploughed up the Mountain Daisy: 
Burns lamented the significant destruction of a flower in his 
“ To a Mountain Daisy ”; the ploughman may have halted in 
some reflective spirit. 

70. “ Come away, Death,”: 

“ Fly away, fly away, breath; 

I am slain by a fair cruel maid.” 

A song sung by the clown in Twelfth Night, II, iv. The play 
occurs in Illyria. 

Birmingham-hearted substitutes: the tone of a bell softens 
and mellows with age; new bells from Birmingham, England, a 
famous bell manufacturing center, would take years to gain the 
same warmth of tone. 

71. weir : a fence of brushwood, set in a stream for catching fish. 


NOTES 


305 


73. queasy: uneasy. 

74. “ O France , mes amours ” .* “ 0 France, my love! ” 

Alsace : Alsace and Lorraine were the French provinces ceded 

to Germany after the war of 1870. 

“ Les malheurs de la France ”: “ The misfortunes of France.” 

Fontainebleau: the most beautiful forest in France, which 
covers 41,500 acres. Read Stevenson’s essay, “ Fontainebleau.” 

75. the Empire : the government under Napoleon III, called 
the Second Empire. 

Farmer George: George III, who was stupid enough not to 
heed Burke’s Speech on Conciliation, lost the colonies in America. 
Thackeray calls him “ Farmer George.” 

Caudine Forks: two narrow mountain passes in Italy where a 
Roman army was defeated by the Samnites in the fourth century 
b.c. and after the battle was forced to pass under the yoke. 

Consents Frangais: French conscripts. 

76. Fletcher: Andrew Fletcher, a Scottish political writer of 
the seventeenth century. He wrote in a letter, “ I knew a very 
wise man that believed that if a man were permitted to make all 
the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of the 
nation.” 

Paul Deroulede: a French writer on politics of Stevenson’s 
own time. 

77. Othello over again: Othello, although a dark Moor, won 
the ear of Desdemona by relating his “ most disastrous chances.” 
Shakespeare’s Othello, I, iii. 

79. St. Quentin: a French town near Origny, with a fine 
Gothic church. It was named after the one who introduced 
Christianity, whose history is told in the bas-reliefs of the choir 
screen of the church. 

81. his hair flourishing like Samson’s: the strong man of the 
Israelites whose strength lay in his uncut locks. He was beguiled 
by Delilah into telling this secret, which caused his destruction. 
Judges XVI. 

“ Tristes tetes de Danois! ”: “ Sad Danish heads.” 

Gaston Lafenestre: a French painter, a contemporary of 
Stevenson’s. 


306 


NOTES 


82. Jacques : Charles Emile Jacques, a noted French painter, 
also of the Barbizon School of Stevenson’s time. 

83. Barbizon: a village near Fontainebleau, the resort of the 
French school of landscape painters, among whom were Rousseau, 
Corot, and Francois Millet, who painted the “ Angelus.” 

petard: blusterer. 

proletarian : one of the poorest class in the state. 

84. pro indiviso: in common. 

85. “ Ehbien!”: “Well!” 

“Eh bien quoi, c’est magnifique , ga!”: “Well, now, that 
is magnificent! ” 

86. Inquisition: a court of the Roman Catholic Church that 
tried heretics and delivered them over to torture, before the 
Middle Ages. 

Poe’s horrid story: “ The Pit and the Pendulum ” by Edgar 
Allan Poe, “ horrid ” being used in the Shakespearean sense of 
“ horrifying.” 

Tristram Shandy: a novel by Laurence Sterne; in it there is 
a sermon giving an exaggerated account of the tortures of Inquisi¬ 
tions. 

87. Nanty Ewart: a smuggler in Scott’s Redgauntlet. “‘A 

d-d bad religion,’ said Nanty, of whose Presbyterian edu¬ 

cation a hatred of Popery seemed to be the only remnant.” 
Vol. II, Ch. XV. 

Communist : one who believes in abolishing all private owner¬ 
ship. 

Communard : a supporter of the Paris Commune. 

92. Paris Bourse : the Stock Exchange. 

hecatomb : a sacrifice of a hundred oxen at one time. 

siphon : a pipe or tube bent so that one leg is longer than the 
other. 

La Fere: captured after a long siege by the Germans in 1870. 

Niimberg figures : toy figures that are manufactured in Nurem¬ 
berg, Germany. 

93. “ C'est bon , n'est-ce pas? ” “ It is good, is it 

not?” 

97. temple of Diana: at Ephesus, one of the seven wonders of 



NOTES 


307 


the world. Herostratus, a pyromaniac, fired it on the birth of 
Alexander the Great just to make himself famous. 

98. “Bazin, aubergiste , loge a pied”: “Bazin, innkeeper, 
lodgings for pedestrians.” 

“ A la Croix de Malte ” : “ At the Maltese Gross.” 

shakoes : peaked military caps with plumes. 

Zola’s: Emile Zola, 1840-1902, the greatest novelist of the 
Naturalist or Realistic school, L’Assommoir, III. 

100. Coucy : a village with a feudal castle. 

St. Gobain : noted for its mirror work. 

101. Chauny : an industrial town. 

Noyon: an ancient town. Here Charlemagne was crowned 
king of the Franks in 768. It was the birthplace of Calvin, the 
Protestant reformer. 

103. Hotel de Ville : town hall. 

Hotel duNord: Hotel of the North. 

105. Sacristan : an officer in charge of the sacred utensils and 
vestments of a church. 

106. Miserere: the Liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer. 

“ Have mercy upon me, O God ” — 

“ Ave Maria ” : “ Hail, Mary, pray for us,” an anthem. 

darkling: in the dark. See Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale.” 

“ Darkling I listen; and for many a time, 

I have been half in love with easeful death.” 

107. garrison catch: an unaccompanied round written as a 
continuous melody such as “ Three Blind Mice.” 

108. Jubilate Deo: “O be joyful in the Lord.” Psalms 
LXVI and C. 

department : a territorial division or province of France. The 
districts are often named after the rivers. 

111. water houses : canal boats. 

Deo Gratias: Thanks be to God. 

Four Sons of Aymon: the heroes of an early French Romance. 
See Orlando Furioso. 

112. Compiegne : a favorite country seat of the monarchs of 
France. It was here that Joan of Arc was taken prisoner by the 


308 


NOTES 


Burgundians in 1430. The castle contains furniture of the Louis 
XIV-XVI style. 

114. niminy : mincing, affected. 

Chailly road : from Barbizon. 

Reine Blanche : White Queen. 

Gothic insecurity : the pointed or Gothic architecture of the 
Middle Ages looked insecure because of the thin spires and 
fretwork. The most striking example is the roof of the Milan 
Cathedral. 

gargoyled : covered with water spouts, each carved to represent 
a man or beast like the famous imp of Notre Dame in Paris. 

bedizened: adorned. 

Louis XII: King of France, 1498-1515. He ruled his people 
so well that the estates of Tours conferred upon him the surname, 
“ Father of the People.” He married Mary Tudor, sister of 
Henry VIII of England. Part of his reign was taken up with 
fruitless expeditions into Italy. 

116. centurion: a captain of a hundred men in the Roman 
army. 

116. Via Dolorosa: the Dolorous Way, the path out of Jeru¬ 
salem that Christ walked to Golgotha where he was cruci¬ 
fied. 

118. L’lsle Adam: a town fifteen miles northwest of Paris, 
named from the larger of two islands. 

120. perspicuous : clear to the understanding. 

feuilletons: that part of the French newspaper devoted to 
fight literature or criticism. 

121. Verberie : a small town, once the favorite residence of the 
Carlovingian Kings. 

Sauteme : a white wine — generally spelled “ Sauternes.” 

Bradshaw’s Guide : a time-table for all the English railways, 
started by the printer, George Bradshaw of Manchester, in 1839. 

Walt Whitman : the great naturalistic poet of America. Ste¬ 
venson admired Whitman’s poetry and wrote one of his best 
essays on him. See “ Familiar Studies of Men and Books.” 

122. apotheosis : exaltation of a person or ideal like the giving 
of honors to a deceased Roman emperor. 


NOTES 


309 


longevous: long-lived. 

metaphysics : philosophy. 

123. Nirvana : according to Buddhism, the state of complete 
repose or happiness, in which the soul becomes a part of the 
infinite. 

Buddhists: followers of Buddha, an Indian philosopher and 
teacher of the fifth century b.c. 

incurious: indifferent. 

127. Great Assizes : the Assizes were the sessions of an Eng¬ 
lish Court; here Stevenson means the Last Judgment. 

128. Creil: a town noted for its manufacture of machinery. 
There are ruins of the castle in which Charles VI resided during 
his madness. The church is of the Gothic style. 

English wars: the great wars between England and France 
during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 

129. ex voto: as a votive offering. 

130. St. Joseph : the husband of the Virgin Mary. 

Gregory Sixteenth : pope 1831-1846. 

131. St. Dominic: 1170-1221. A Spanish monk who founded 
the Dominican Order to put down heresy in the Cevennes. 

St. Catherine of Sienna: a saint of the fourteenth century, 
who is noted as having received on her hands the stigmata, or 
the impression of the wounds of the crucified Christ. 

Zelatrice: a zealous nun, the secretary of a convent. 

choragus : in the Greek theater, the conductor of the dramatic 
representation. 

dizaine: a group of ten prayers. 

excise man: collector of revenue on beer bottles. Robert 
Burns held this position at the time of his death. 

132. Euclid : geometry. 

135. ragout: a highly spiced stew of meat and vegetables. 

bumper: a crowded house of a theater in honor of some per¬ 
former. 

136. proscenium : that part of the stage in front of the cur¬ 
tain. 

137. “ We are not cotton spinners all.” See Tennyson’s poem, 
“ The Third of February, 1852,” VIII, 1. 3. 


310 


NOTES 


aff-n-aff: “Half and half/’ a mixture generally of porter and 
ale. 

138. “ ’Tis better to have loved and lost.” 

“’Tis better to have loved and lost. 

Than never to have loved at all.” 

Tennyson’s “ In Memoriam, ” XXVII. 

Endymion: a beautiful youth who was condemned to endless 
sleep on a hilltop where Diana, the moon, kissed him every 
night. 

Audrey: the country wench in Shakespeare’s As You Like It 
with whom Touchstone, the clown, falls in love. 

snood : a fillet worn around the hair by a young woman. 

140. “ Mesdames et Messieurs, Mademoiselle Ferrario et M. de 
Vauversin auront Vhonneur de chanter ce soir les morceaux suivants. 
Mademoiselle Ferrario chanter a—Mignon — Oiseaux Legers — 
France — Des Frangais dorment la — le chateau bleu —- Ou voulez- 
vous allerf M. de Vauversin —■ Madame Fontaine et M. Robinet 

— Les plongeurs a cheval — Le Mari mecontent — Tais-toi, gamin 

— Mon voisin V original — Heureux comme ga — Comme on est 
trompe” : “Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Ferrario and Mr. de 
Vauversin will have the honor of singing this evening the fol¬ 
lowing pieces: Miss Ferrario will sing ‘ Mignon,’ ‘Birds Lightly 
on the Wing,’ ‘ France/ ‘ Frenchmen Sleep There/ ‘ The Blue 
Chateau/ ‘ Where Will You Go?’; Mr. de Vauversin, Madame 
Fontaine, and Mr. Robinet: ‘ The Divers on Horseback/ ‘ The 
Discontented Husband/ ‘ Be Quiet, You Scamp/ ‘ My Queer 
Neighbor/ ‘ Happy Like That/ ‘ How We Are Deceived.’ ” 

salle-a-manger: dining room. 

141. Chatelet : a popular theater in Paris. 

Alcazar : a music hall in Paris. 

Maire : the mayor. 

142. Tenezj messieurs , je vais vous le dire: Now then, 
gentlemen, I will tell you what it is. 

143. the Muses : the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, 
who lived on Mount Parnassus and who presided over the arts 
and sciences. 

Pyramus and Thisbe: two lovers of ancient Babylon who were 


NOTES 


311 


kept apart by their families, and met a tragic end. Ovid’s 
Metamorphoses, Book IV. Shakespeare satirizes the story in 
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

Alexandrines : a verse consisting regularly of six iambic feet. 

unities: the Greek rules of drama: one day, one place, one 
action. 

144. tittups: prances, capers. 

145. Theophile Gautier : a French Romantic poet and novelist 
who believed that art is the highest good in life. 

Havre : the seaport at the mouth of the Seine. 

147. Charles of Orleans : a French poet of the fifteenth century 
about whom Stevenson wrote an essay. 

roundels: poems in fixed form, having a peculiar and set 
arrangement of lines. 

Mr. Lang: Andrew Lang, 1844-1912, the Scotch poet, wrote 
a number of light lyrics as well as imitations and translations of 
French poetry. 

Mr. Dobson: Austin Dobson, an English poet who wrote in 
the French formal style. He was a friend of Stevenson’s and 
became his biographer. 

Mr. Henley: William E. Henley, a Scotch poet who was es¬ 
pecially successful in free and unrhymed rhythm. His friendship 
with Stevenson began in the Edinburgh hospital. 

Michelet : Jules Michelet, a French historian of the nineteenth 
century. 

148. Villon: Frangois Villon, the vagabond poet of France 
of the fifteenth century, author of the famous poem, “ Where Are 
the Snows of Yester-year?” Stevenson was a great admirer of 
his and made him the hero of the story, “ A Lodging for a Night.” 
The reference here is to his banishment from Paris by Parlement 
for his part in a robbery of the College of Navarre. 

149. uhlans : lancers of Tartar origin — here of the Prussian 
Army. 

Chateau Renard: a popular name associated with the great 
animal epic of Reynard the Fox. 

“non, vous avez des portraits “no, you have some 
portraits.” 


312 


NOTES 


150. pornographic colporteur: one who distributes obscene 
literature. 

grenadine : a sweet drink. 

151. rabbinical : like the Jewish teachers of the law. 

Childe Roland to the dark tower came : This line from Edgar’s 
song in King Lear , III, iv, 187, Browning used as a title for an 
allegorical poem. 

“ Monsieur est voyageur ? ”: “ Are you a traveler, monsieur ? ” 

152. Bardolph’s : the red-nosed thief of Shakespeare’s Henry 
IV and V. “ Do you not remember, ’a saw a flea stick upon Bar¬ 
dolph’s nose, and ’a said it was a black soul burning in hell-fire? ” 
Henry V, II, iii, 42. 

154. “Pas de plaisanterie, monsieur!”: “No joking, 
Monsieur.” 

“ Mais oui. Tres bien”: “ Why yes. Very well.” 

“ Comment , monsieur! ”: “ How, monsieur! ” 

“ Enfin , il faut en finir ”: “ It is necessary to make an 
end.” 

“ Quoi? ” : “What?” 

155. voyou: blackguard. 

169. “Alorsy monsieur , vous etes le fils d’un baron?”: 
“ Then, Monsieur, you are the son of a baron ? ” 

“ Alors y ce n'est pas votre passeport! ”: “Then this is not 
your passport.” 

“Eh bien , je suppose quHl faut lacker votre camarade”: 

“ I suppose that it is necessary to release your companion.” 

160. Arethusa } s roundels: Stevenson often refers lightly to 
his own lyrics. 

Alexandria : the famous library of Alexandria that was burned 
by the Saracens in 640 a.d. 

proces-verbal: official report. 

“ Vous etes libre! ”: “ You are free! ” 

161. matador: the man appointed to kill the bull in bull 
fights. 

162. befrogged : decorated with fancy frogs or ornaments. 

“ Suivez!”: “Follow.” 

arrest of the members: what is known as Pride’s Purge in 


NOTES 


313 


the time of Charles I when those members of Parliament who 
favored a reconciliation with him were forcibly ejected. 

Tennis Court: a large building at Versailles where the French 
deputies to the Estates-General swore that they would draw up a 
constitution for France. 

the Declaration of Independence : signed on July 4, 1776. 

Mark Antony’s oration: the speech begins “ Friends, Romans, 
countrymen.” Julius Caesar, III, ii, 78. 

163. Siron’s: an inn at Barbizon where Stevenson was a 
favorite among the artists. See Stevenson’s essay, “ Fontaine¬ 
bleau.” 


TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 

169. Velay: a territory of southern France. 

donkey : See “ An Autumn Effect ” in Stevenson’s Essays of 
Travel. 

Le Monastier : See Stevenson’s “ A Mountain Town in France.” 

Le Puy : the town rises in the form of an amphitheater. From 
the new town the traveler ascends the old feudal town through 
narrow streets, paved with lava cobblestones, up to the Cathedral 
by the pinnacle of Mount Corneille, a steep rock. 

Legitimists : supporters of the elder Bourbon line, Louis XIV, 
at that time represented by Count de Chambord. 

Orleanists : supporters of the junior line of the younger brother, 
Duke of Orleans. 

Imperialists : supporters of the son of Louis Napoleon. 

Republicans : supporters of the republic established after the 
Franco-Prussian War. 

173. spencer: a sweater or jersey. 

Beaujolais : the wine of the district in the department of Rhone 
and Loire. 

vaticinations : prophecies. 

Christian : the hero of Bunyan’s Pilgrim's Progress, who started 
to heaven with a load on his back. 

176. as an ox goeth to the slaughter : Proverbs VII, 22. 

178. Alais : a town on the left bank of the Gardon. 


314 


NOTES 


“ Et vous marchez comme ga ! ”: “ And you walk like that! ” 

179. deus ex machina: a god let down from a machine. For 
the Greek tragedy, a crane or derrick projected over the back 
wall of the stage to let gods down from heaven by a cable. It 
was an easy solution for a tangled plot to have the gods step in 
on the scene. 

181. Homer’s Cyclops: Polyphemus, chief of the one-eyed 
giants, imprisoned Ulysses in a cave in Sicily. After seeing the 
giant kill some of his followers, Ulysses got him drunk and blinded 
him, escaping himself afterwards under one of the giant’s sheep. 
Odyssey , Book IX. 

182. instantly: constantly. 

nickering: neighing. 

bastinado : a blow with a stick or cudgel. 

hypothec : a mortgage; here the saddle — everything that 
Modestine as a creditor possesses. 

183. acolytes : young assistants to the priest. 

186. Mount Mezenc : a volcanic mountain isolated and precip¬ 
itous from which a fine view may be obtained of the Cevennes. 

St. Julien: a peak in the mountains of Vivarais. 

189. amateur : lover. 

190. dur comme un ane: tough as a donkey. 

St. Etienne : an important manufacturing town in the coal 
region of the Department of Loire. 

193. Alexander Pope : eighteenth century poet of the classical 
school, author of the “ Rape of the Lock.” 

little corporal: Napoleon, who was short of stature. 

194. M. Elie Berthet: a French novelist of the nineteenth 
century, author of Bete du Gevaudan. 

caryatides: statues of women in long robes upholding the 
cornice of the temple of Erechtheum of Athens. 

“ D'oii’st que vous venez ? ”; “ Where did you come from ? ” 

198. eerie : weird. 

Herbert Spencer: the great English philosopher, 1820-1903, 
whom Stevenson especially admired. See his Books Which Have 
Influenced Me. 

200. patois; a dialect. 


NOTES 


315 


201. “ a little farther lend thy guiding hand ”: “ Samson 
Agonistes ” by Milton. 

202. “ Cest que , voyez-vous , il fait noir ”: “ It is dark, you 

see.” 

“ mais — c’est — de la peine”: “but it would cause me 
trouble.” 

“ Ce n'est pas ga ”: “ It is not that.” 

“ Cest vrai, ga,” ... 11 oui , c } est vrai. Et d'ou venez- 
vous?”: “ That is true,” . . . “ yes, that is true. And where 
do you come from? ” 

203. farceuse: a jester. 

“ Filia barbara pater barbarior ”: “ O father more barbarous 
than a barbarous daughter.” 

205. bambino: the image of the child Jesus. The most 
sacred Bambino is in Santa Maria in Aracoeli on the Capitoline 
hill in Rome, where services are held by children during Christmas 
week. 

neat brandy : undiluted brandy. 

206. Pastors of the Desert: the history of the Protestant 
insurrection in France between 1765 and 1789. 

207. Ulysses: “ I cannot rest from travel ; I will drink 

Life to the lees.” 

Tennyson’s “Ulysses.” Compare Dante’s Inferno , Canto 
XXVI. 

209. Lady of all Graces : the Virgin Mary. 

What went ye out for to see?: Matthew XI, 8. 

Balquidder, Dunrossness : Protestant parishes in West Perth¬ 
shire, Scotland, and in the Shetland Islands. 

211. jEsop: author of Greek fables. Here Stevenson refers 
to La Fontaine’s fable of “The Miller, His Son and the 
Donkey.” 

212. quintals : a hundred weight. 

214. Our Lady of the Snows : See Stevenson’s poem by this 
name. 

Matthew Arnold: 1822-1888, English poet, critic, and in¬ 
spector of schools. The quotation is from “ Stanzas from the 
Grande Chartreuse,” 


316 


NOTES 


215. Languedocian : referring to a province in southern France. 

Wordsworth : the great Romantic poet. The sonnet begins 

“ Proud were ye mountains when in time of old.” 

Trappist : a branch of the Cistercian Monastery of La Trappe 
in Normandy. 

216. Marco Sadeler : son of Jan Sadeler, a Flemish engraver. 

218. Dr. Pusey: Edward Bouverie Pusey, a leader in the 
Oxford Movement that sought to reform the Church of England. 

219. the Father Hospitaller: the monk in a monastery who 
received and entertained the guests. 

221. MM. les retraitants: people who retire to a monastery 
for rest and prayer, without taking the vows. 

the late Pope : Pope Pius IX, pope from 1846 to 1878. 

Imitation: The Imitation of Christ , a religious book of medita¬ 
tions, written by Thomas a Kempis, about 1471. 

Life of Elizabeth Seton: Mrs. Seton, founder of the order of 
Sisters of Charity, 1809. 

Cotton Mather: author of Magnolia, Christi Americana, the 
ecclesiastical history of New England. 

“ Le temps libre est employe a Vexamen de conscience, a la 
confession, afaire de bonnes resolutions ” .* “ Leisure is employed 
in the examination of the conscience, in confession, in making 
good resolutions.” 

222. canonicals : the dress prescribed to be worn by a clergy¬ 
man when officiating. 

shako : a kind of military cap. 

breviaries : books of prayers. 

Waverley novels: novels by Sir Walter Scott, 1771-1832, 
named after his first one. 

Basil : St. Basil, 329-379, a father of the Greek Church. 

Hilarion : St. Hilarion, 300-371, the founder of monasticism in 
Palestine. 

Raphael : St. Raphael, a Portuguese Benedictine monk. 

Pacifique : St. Pacifique, a French monk and missionary. His 
name was given to him because he was converted by a sermon of 
St. Francis and was like him in sweetness of character. 


NOTES 


317 


Veuillot: Louis Veuillot, 1813-1883, a French writer on the 
doctrines of the Church of Rome. 

Chateaubriand : Frangois Rene Auguste, 1768-1848, a Roman¬ 
ticist who was noted for his perfect prose style. 

Moliere : Jean Baptiste Poquelin, the greatest French drama¬ 
tist, who, like Shakespeare, was also an actor. One of his most 
popular plays is The Imaginary Invalid. 

225. phalansteries : associations of people living in common. 

Cistercian rule : the Cistercian monks lived under the rule 

of St. Benedict. This passage refers especially to the law of 
silence under St. Benedict. 

chapter room: the room where the monks met to transact 
business. 

refectory : the dining hall for monks. 

226. Algiers: capital of Algeria in northern Africa; held by 
the French since 1830. 

227. compline : the last of the seven hours for church prayers, 
coming after vespers. 

Salve Regina: “ Hail, queen of compassion.’’ 

occluded : shut off. 

a French song: 

“ Que t’as de belles filles , 

Girofie ! 

Girofla ! 

Que t’as de belles filles, 

L’Amour les comptera!” 

“ How many beautiful daughters you have, 

Girofie! 

Girofie! 

How many beautiful daughters you have, 

Love will count them.” 

229. Mende: chief town of the department of Lozere and 
the seat of the bishopric. 

230. kilted : tucked up. 

231. Gambetta’s: Leon Gambetta, a French politician after 
the war of 1870. 


318 


NOTES 


“ Comment, monsieur?” he shouted. “ Comment? ” 

“ How, sir? ” he shouted. “ How? ” 

“ Et vous pretendez mourir dans cette espece de croyance? ”: 
“ And you intend to die in that kind of faith? ” 

232. Gaetulian lion: Gaetulia was in northern Africa, the 
home of fierce lions. Horace, making love to a young virgin, 
begged her to believe that he was no Gaetulian lion, bent on 
breaking her bones. Odes, I, XXIII, 15. 

233. “ C } est mon conseil comme ancien militaire,” “ et celui 
de monsieur comme pretre” “ This is my advice as an old 
soldier,” observed the Commandant; “ and this gentleman's as 
a priest.” 

“ Oui,” “comme ancien militaire — et comme pretre”: 

“ Yes,” added the parish priest, sententiously nodding; “as an 
old soldier and as a priest.” 
grig: grasshopper. 

234. “ a faddling hedonist ” : one who takes the philosophy 
of pleasure as the chief good. 

235. “ La parole est a vous ”: “ It is for you to say.” 

237. caravanserai: a rude inn like those in the East where 
caravans rest. 

Old Play: Stevenson’s own poem called “A Camp,” from 
Underwoods, I, XXXII. 
burn: the Scotch term for “ stream.” 

238. “He, bourgeois; il est cinq heures!”: “Hey, sir, it is 
five o’clock.” 

239. bourree: a tune of a folk-dance, common in Auvergne. 
feyness: doom. 

242. the stars rain down an influence: an allusion to the 
Pythagorean doctrine of the harmony of the spheres. It was 
thought that the stars cast off a liquid that affected people’s lives. 
Milton uses the same expression. 

“ With store of ladies, whose bright eyes 
Rain influence.” 


arcana: mysteries. 


U Allegro, lines 121-122. 


NOTES 


319 


Montaigne: Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, 1533-1592, the 
great French essayist whose philosophy of life Stevenson’s closely 
resembles. This quotation is from the essay on “There Is a 
Good Husbandry in Enjoying Life.” 

Bastille: the state prison of France which was destroyed on 
July 14, 1789, by the Revolutionists. 

246. caravanserai : See note on page 237. 

247. W. P. Bannatyne: Stevenson assumed this name. The 
poem is called “ The Country of the Camisards.” XXXIII in 
the volume of Stevenson’s poems. 

249. “ like stout Cortez when, with eagle eyes, he stared on 
the Pacific”: the quotation is from Keats’s sonnet, “On First 
Looking into Chapman’s Homer.” It was not Cortez, however, 
but Balboa that discovered the Pacific. 

Pic de Finiels : a mountain peak, 5585 feet high. 

Montpellier : a city in southern France. 

Cette : the seaport of Montpellier. 

250. Grand Monarch: Louis XIV. Read the biographies of 
Louis XIV by Louis Bertrand and Francis Hackett. 

Camisards: the peasants of the Cevennes who, from 1702 to 
1705, carried on an organized military resistance against those 
who tried to convert them to Catholicism after the revocation 
of the Edict of Nantes. 

coffee house : centers of literary and political discussion in 
London, especially in the reign pf Queen Anne. See Addison’s 
Spectator, Papers I, 49, 403, 568. 

Roland : Roland La Porte was a captain who was betrayed by 
one of his officers. His death meant the end of the insurrection. 

generalissimo : the chief commander of an army. 

Cavalier : Jean Cavalier was successful in a campaign against 
Louis XIV. After an unpopular treaty that he had negotiated, 
he fled to Holland and England, where later he became governor 
of Jersey and of the Isle of Wight. 

251. Castanet : Andre Castanet: chief of the Camisards and 
captain under Roland. He was engaged in two revolts and was 
finally condemned to be broken on the wheel. 

peruke : a wig. * 


320 


NOTES 


252. Florentin : an organized band of Roman Catholics from 
St. Florent. 

255. Carlisle: a city in Cumberland, England, near the border 
of Scotland. 

Dumfries: capital of Dumfriesshire, Scotland, just over the 
border from England—associated with Robert Burns. 

256. squired : attended as a squire. 

patet dea: appears the goddess. 

257. Archbishop Sharpe: James Sharpe, Archbishop of St. 
Andrews, Scotland, murdered by the Covenanters on May 3, 
1679. 

Marshal Villars : Claude Louis Hector, Due de Villars, Marshal 
of France. He put down the insurrection of the Camisards. 

258. Lamoignon de Bavile: a commissioner of various prov¬ 
inces of the Cevennes region. After the revocation of the Edict 
of Nantes, he began a severe repression of the Protestants. 

Francois de Langlade du Chayla : archpriest of the Cevennes. 
He had charge of the missions that purposed a reconversion of 
the Protestants. 

pariah : a Hindu of the lowest caste. 

Buddhists : followers of Buddha, an Indian philosopher. 

269. Geneva: the city and district of Switzerland bordering 
on the lake of that name. 

conventicle: an assembly for religious worship, especially a 
secret or illegal one. 

Scavenger’s Daughter: a mediaeval instrument of torture by 
which a victim was slowly squeezed to death. 

260. Baal: Baal is the generic name of a number of Semitic 
deities that had sensual rites connected with their worship. By 
a miracle of fire from heaven, Elijah slew those who had turned 
from God to worship this heathen god. I Kings XVIII. 

261. Captain Poul : an old soldier of fortune in the Alps, who 
commanded a large force. 

263. pass like that of Killiecrankie : a pass in Perthshire, 
Scotland, where the Highlanders under Viscount Dundee defeated 
the government forces in 1689. 

cedars of Lebanon : the famous trees of the mountainous region 


NOTES 


321 


north of Palestine. Wood from these trees was used in the build¬ 
ing of the Jewish temple. 

266. Antony Watteau: 1684-1721. A French painter of pas¬ 
toral life. 

268. “ C'est bien ” : “ That’s good.” 

269. “ Connaissez-vous le Seigneur?”: “ Do you know the 

Lord? ” “ Many are called, . . . and few chosen.” See 

Matthew XXII, 14. 

270. Moravians: the Protestants who were followers of John 
Huss, the Bohemian reformer. 

Derbists : a sect of Christians called the “ Exclusive Brethren ” 
because they were strictly orthodox. The founder was John 
Darby, 1800-1882, a clergyman of the Church of England. The 
sect started in Plymouth; hence originated the title of “Ply¬ 
mouth Brother.” 

271. Christian and Faithful : See Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, 
Book I. “ They went very lovingly on together and had dis¬ 
course.” 

272. horrific : causing horror. 

Byron: George Gordon, Lord Byron, 1788-1824, the most 
revolutionary of the Romantic poets, had a love of wild scenery. 

276. subprefecture: the subdivision of a department of 
France. 

Mauchline, Cumnock, Carsphairn: towns in Ayrshire, Scot¬ 
land. 

Wigtown : a town in southwestern Scotland. 

Muirkirk of Glenluce: a town twenty-one miles from Ayr 
where Robert Burns farmed. 

beadle’s : a parish officer who, among his various duties, keeps 
order in church. 

276. Prophet Peden: Alexander Peden, 1620-1686, the most 
famous preacher of the Scotch Covenanters. 

purgatorial Poland: Poland was always noted for its dissen¬ 
sions. 

Black Camisard, White Camisard: distinguished by their 
uniforms. 

Miquelet : Spanish bandits named after their leader. 


322 


NOTES 


dragoon: mounted infantry man. 

277. babel: referring to the tower of Babel where the confu¬ 
sion of language was supposed to have occurred. 

dissenter: one who does not conform to the Established 
Church. 

278. millet: cereal or forage grasses. 

bight: a bend. 

279. a la belle etoile: in the open air. 

281. baldric: a belt worn over the shoulder and across the 
body to support, in this case, a bag of grain. 

284. house of Rimmon: Naaman, who was captain of the 
army of a Syrian king, after being cured of leprosy by Elisha, 
worshipped the living God in his pagan temple. See II Kings V, 
18. See Milton’s Paradise Lost, Book I. 

“ Him followed Rimmon, whose delightful seat 
Was fair Damascus — 

He also against the house of God was bold, 

A leper once he lost, and gained a king.” 

Louis XVI: the king of France guillotined by the revolutionists 
in 1792. 

285. Bruce: Robert I, King of Scotland, 1274-1329, was the 
great hero of the battle of Bannockburn. 

Wallace: Sir William Wallace, a Scottish hero. See Burns’s 
poem, “ Scots wha ha’e wi’ Wallace bled.” 

286. “ Cependant, coucher dehors!” “But, to sleep out-of- 
doors ! ” 

287. Sir Cloudesley Shovel: 1650-1707, a British admiral. 
He took part in the capture of Gibraltar. 

288. Rip van Winkle: see Irving’s Sketch Book. 

289. Pippa: the name of the little silk weaver in the poem of 
“ Pippa Passes ” by Browning. She sang a song that awakened 
the conscience of four prominent people at a crucial moment in 
their lives. Her most famous one was “ The Year’s at the 
Spring.” 

Volnay: red Burgundy wine. 

293. Apollo: the sun god of the Greeks. 


NOTES 


323 


Mercury: the messenger of the gods. 

Love: Cupid, son of Venus and Adonis. 

295. phylloxera: an insect which attacks the roots and the 
leaves of grape vines. 

298. “ Oui y c’est comme ga. Comme dans le nord! ” “Yes, 
it is like that — just as in the North.’’ 

“ And O,” etc.: Quoted from Wordsworth’s poem, “ She 
Dwelt among Untrodden Ways.” 

Farewell, and if forever: 

“ Fare thee well! and if forever, 

Still forever, fare thee well.” 

Byron. 







. . 















PRONUNCIATION OF NAMES 


Pronounce 


a as in 

day 

6 as in so 

u as in use 

a 

U 

am 

6 “ rbb 

h “ chp 

a 

(l 

far 

6 “ or 

ft “ tftrn 

a 

a 

fare 

6 “ 6bey 

u as in French me-nii (hold 

a 

u 

ask 

oo “ pool 

the lips as if to pronounce 

e 

u 

eve 

do “ book 

oo, and try to pronounce e) 

6 

u 

I6t 

n as ny in canyon 

y as in yet 

£ 

u 

event 

n as in French 

e 

u 

later 

bon (nasal) 



Aigoal, 6-gwal 
Aisne, an 
Alais, a-lS' 

Allier, a-lya' 

Alsace, al-sas' (French al- 

zas) 

Altefage, alt-fazh 
Ardeche, ar'dSsh' 

Barbizon, bar-be-zon' 

Bas Breau, ba bra-o' 

Bastide, La, la bas-ted' 

Bazin, ba-zan' 

Bleymard, blS-mar' 

Bouchet, boo-shS' 

Bouges, bbo-zh6s 
Broceliande, brS-sS-ly-and' 

Cassagnas, ka-sa'nas 
Castanet, kas-ta-na' 

325 


Cevennes, sa-vSn' 

Chabrier, sha-brya 
Chailly, sha-ye' 

Charleroi, shar-le-rwa' 
Chasserades, shas’-ra-dfis' 
Chassezac, shas'zak 
Chateau Beaufort, sha-to' bo- 
for' 

Chateau Landon, sha-to' lan- 
don' 

Chatelet, shat’la' 
Chatillon-sur-Loing, sha-te- 
yoh-siir-lwah 
Chauny, sho-ne' 

Cheylard, Le, le shS-lar' 
Cocures, k6-kii-rSs 
Compiegne, k6n-pygn' > 

Coucy, kbo-se' 

Creil, krg'y’ 


326 


PRONUNCIATION OF NAMES 


Deroulede, da-roo-lSd' 

Etreux, a-trti' 

Fere, La, la far 
Fontainebleau, f6n-ten-blo' 
Fouzilhac, foo-zel-yak' 
Fouzilhic, foo-zel-yek' 
Frugeres, fru-zhar 

Gautier, Theophile, ta-6-fel' 
go-tya 

Gevaudon, zha-vo-don' 

Gien, zhy&n 

Gilliard, Hector, £k-tor' zhe- 
lyar' 

Goudet, goo-da' 

Goulet, La, la goo-la 

Hainaulters, S-no'ter 
Hautmont, o-mon' 

Havre, a-vr 
Henri, an-re' 

Hollandais, o-lan-d6' 

Laeken, la'kgn 

Lafenestre, Gaston, gas-ton 
la-fe-nSs-tr 

La Jussiere, la zhii-syar 
Landrecies, lan-drS-se' 
Langlade du Chayla, lan-glad 
dii sha-la 

Langogne, lan-gon 
Lausonne, lo-z6n' 

Lestampes, 16s-tanp 
LTsle Adam, lei a-dan' 

Loch Caron, 16k kS,'r6n 
Lorraine, 16-ran' 


Lozere, 15-zar' 

Luc, liik 

Maubeuge, mo-bdzh' 

Mende, mand 
Mercoire, mgr-kwar' 

Mezenc, ma-zan' 

Mialet, my-a-la' 

Miquelet, mek’la' 

Miral, me-ral 
Modestine, mo-d6s-ten' 
Moliere, mo-lyar' 

Monastier, Le, le mo-nas-tya' 
Monsieur, me-syti' 

Mormal, mor-mal' 

Moy, mo-e 

Noyon, nwa-yon' 

Oise, waz 

Origny Sainte-Benoite, 6-re- 

ne' sant-be-nwat' 

Pic de Finiels, pek de fen-ySl 
Pont de Montvert, pon de 

moh-vfir 

Pontoise, pon-twaz 
Pont Sainte-Maxence, pon 
s&ht-m&k-sahs' 

Pradelles, pra-dSl 
Precy, pra-se' 

Puy, Le, le pwe 

Reine Blanche, ran blansh 
Rouen, rwan 
Roussillon, roo-se-yon' 

Rupel, ru-p61' 

St. Germain de Calberte, s&n 

zh6r-man de kal-bSrt 


PRONUNCIATION OF NAMES 


327 


St. Gobain, s&n-go-b&n 
St. Julien, s&n-zhii-ly&n 
St. Martin de Frugeres, san'- 
mar-t&n de frii-zhar' 

St. Quentin, san-kan-tan' 
Sambre, sanbr’ 

Scheldt, skSlt 
Seguier, sa-gya 
Seine, san 

Seine-et-Marne, san-a-marn 


Vadencourt, va-dan-coor' 
Valleraugue, val-rog 
Vauversin, vo-vSr-san 
Verberie, vgr’bre' 
Vernede, La, la vSr-n8d' 
Villefort, vel-for 
Villevorde, vel-vord' 
Villon, ve-yon' 

Vivarais, ve-va-rS' 

Willebroek, wll'e-brook 


Tupigny, tii-pe-ne' 



TOPICS FOR THEME WRITING 

(Based on the Essays) 

Into the beautiful pattern of Stevenson’s autobiographic narra¬ 
tive are woven little intricate designs of all the various forms 
of writing. To pick these out and to experiment with them by 
reproduction is in itself a course in composition. 

First there are the bits of narrative marked (N) in the following 
topics. They are narratives of incident based upon little emo¬ 
tional experiences but worked up by the happy devices of sus¬ 
pense and climax into the short-story form. They are told 
in a half-humorous manner and sometimes with a slight touch of 
pathos. 

It is in description, however, that Stevenson shows his greatest 
skill, for he is unerring in his economy of detail and in his choice 
of the concrete or precise word. Since he was himself an artist 
and according to the critic, Joseph Pennell, “ a remarkable 
artist in his sketches of trees and distant landscapes,” he gets 
wonderful black and white effects, and he loves color. He does 
more than the artist even, for he notes all the physical sensations, 
not only the impressions that come through sight but also those 
that come through the senses of sound, smell, taste, and touch. 
In this respect he resembles the poets, Keats and Rupert Brooke. 
The descriptions that may be reproduced are marked (D). 
Those of people that give not only the details of costume, voice, 
and expression, but the inner qualities as well, are both descrip¬ 
tive and expository and are marked (C. S.). 

By far the largest number of topics should be written in the 
personal or familiar essay style (E). Of these there are many 
varieties. First there is the reminiscent essay. In it — according 
to one writer of rhetoric—“Stevenson draws upon his experi- 

329 


330 


TOPICS FOR THEME WRITING 


ences of people and the countryside to re-create for himself and 
to create anew for others simple human joys of the senses.” 
In these remembrances, he approaches almost the intimacies of 
conversation with the reader. Then there are the nature essays 
that deal not so much with nature itself as with the joy to be 
found in it. These are never boringly rhapsodic, nor do they 
contain any platitudes. Closely associated with these are the 
essays of ideas that are little comments on life that grow out of 
Stevenson’s personal philosophy and that later on are developed 
with perfect technique in his longer essays. They reveal also his 
hobbies and his hatreds, though the latter are few and can almost 
all be traced to the one just dread of intolerance, or of lack of 
understanding. If all his ideas about what makes life worth 
while cannot appeal to the reader, they will at least make him 
stop to think. 


TOPICS FOR SHORT THEMES 

“AN INLAND VOYAGE” 

Antwerp to Boom 

Handling a Sail on a Canoe (E) 

Hotel de la Navigation (D) 

Stevenson’s Tribute to Women (E) 

On the Willebroek Canal 

Canal Barges (D) 

The Joys of a Bargee (E) 

Lunch in the Open (D) 

Fishermen on the Willebroek Canal (D) 

The Royal Sport Nautique 

The Belgian Boating-Men (D) 

Youthful Enthusiasms (E) 

Nautical Sports versus Land Sports (D) 


TOPICS FOR THEME WRITING 


331 


At Maubeuge 

The Omnibus Driver at Maubeuge (D) 

“ The Pipes of Pan ” in Virginibus Puerisque (E) 

The Mystic Bonds of Free Masons (E) 

To Quartes 

Smoking under Difficulties (D) 

Anglers on the Scene (D) 

Young Hainaulters (D) 

The Significance of the Red Sash (E) 

We are Pedlars 

A Country Scene (D) 

Pedlars in a Laborer’s Alehouse (D) 

On Class Distinctions (E) 

The Traveling Merchant 
Parental Pride (E) 

The Little Prince (C. S.) 

To Landrecies 

The Forest of Mormal (D) 

Odors I Enjoy (E) 

Seeing the World through the Eyes of a Pedlar’s Son (E) 
Youth on the Road (D) 

At Landrecies 

Drums and Asses (E) 

On Collecting (E) 

Sambre and Oise Canal 

French versus English Manners (E) 

French Pride — a Contrast — French versus English (E) 
Poverty in England and France (E) 

Life in a Canal Boat (D) 

The Books I Would Choose for My Canal Boat (E) 

How to Furnish a Canal Boat (E) 

What I Associate with Rouen (E) 


332 


TOPICS FOR THEME WRITING 


The Oise in Flood 

Pain after Pleasure (E) 

A Study in Contrasts (E) 

Origny Sainte-BenoIte 

French Taste in Songs (E) 

Patriotic Songs (E) 

The Company at Table 
Gaston (C. S.) 

The Landlady’s Husband (C. S.) 

Scotch versus French Conversation (E) 

A Modern Samson (C. S.) 

Down the Oise to Moy 

The Significance of the Names of French Inns (E) 
Being Cheated (E) 

A Lingering Look at the Three Graces (N) 

The Absurdity of Au Revoir (E) 

The Joy of Rivers (E) 

La FkRE of Cursed Memory 

How Sir Walter Felt to Be Taken for a Pedlar (D) 
Turned Out (N) 

Bazin of Aspirations (C. S.) 

Through the Golden Valley 

The Golden Valley (D) 

A Humorous Donkey (D) 

No yon Cathedral 

The First View of Noyon (D) 

On Sermons (E) 

Down the Oise to Compiegne 

The Last Wetting (N) 

The Joining of the Aisne with the Oise (D) 


TOPICS FOR THEME WRITING 


333 


At Compiegne 

French Soldiers versus Highlanders (E) 

The Town Hall Clock at Compiegne and the Strassburg Clock 
(D) 

Compiegne at Six in the Morning (D) 

Changed Times 

The Romance of Eating (E) 

The Seventh Heaven of Stupidity (E) 

Church Interiors 

The Aged Devotee (C. S.) 

The St. Nicholas Story (N) 

Pr£cy and the Marionettes 

A Comparison of “Providence and the Guitar ’’with “A Lodg¬ 
ing for the Night ” (E) 

Croquet at Pr6cy (D) 

The Marionette Show under Difficulties (N) 

Tony Sarg’s Marionettes (E) 

The Charm of M. de Vauversin (C. S.) 

Pyramus and Thisbe in the Open (D) 

Pyramus and Thisbe in Shakespeare (E) 

Back to the World 
Wearying of Idling (E) 


TOPICS FOR SHORT THEMES 

“ TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY” 

The Donkey, the Pack, and the Pack-Saddle 
Monastier (D) 

A Sleeping Sack (E) 

Bargaining for Modestine (N) 


334 


TOPICS FOR THEME WRITING 


The Green Donkey Driver 
How to Manage a She-Ass (E) 

A Black and White Sketch of Mount Mezenc (E) 

I Have a Goad 

A Typical Inn of the French Highlands (D) 

Goads and Goads (E) 

A Rustic Landscape (E) 

A Camp in the Dark 
How a Scotchman May Dilate on Rain (E) 

The Highland Scenery (D) 

Asking for Directions (N) 

The Beasts of Gevaudan (C. S.) 

Camping Out All Night in the Rain (D) 

Morning on Upper Gevaudan (D) 

Cheylard and Luc 
Traveling for Travel’s Sake (E) 

Cheylard (D) 

Father Apollinaris 
The Naked Hills of Gevaudan (D) 

Father Apollinaris (C. S.) 

The Monks 

The Effect of Silence in a Monastery (E) 

Father Michael (C. S.) 

Father Ambrose (C. S.) 

The Irish Boarder at the Monastery (C. S.) 

The Deacon (C. S.) 

The Boarders 

The Parish Priest at Our Lady of the Snows (C. S.) 
The Old Soldiers at the Monastery (C. S.) 

Across the Goulet 

The Sounds of the Early Morning (D) 

The Fight with Modestine (N) 


TOPICS FOR THEME WRITING 


335 


A Night among the Pines 

Paying for a Night’s Lodging in the Open (E) 

Sounds of the Night (D) 

Colors of the Early Morning (D) 

Across the Lozere 

Distant Rumblings of the Protestant Revolt (E) 

The Descent from the Highest Cevennes (N) 

Pont de Montvert 

Seguier’s Psalm Singing Revolt (N) 

The Faith of Pierre Seguier (E) 

The Fair Clarisse (C. S.) 

Dipping into a New Southland (D) 

Pont de Montvert (D) 

Prophets and Inspired Covenanters (E) 

Francois de Langlade du Chayla (C. S.) 

In the Valley of the Tarn 
Religion in a Brown Nightcap (D) 

The Plymouth Brothers (C. S.) 

The Magic of the Trees in the Valley of the Tarn (D) 
Sleeping in the Chestnut Gardens (D) 

The Morning Wash (D) 

The Valley of La Vernede (D) 

Florac 

The Breaking Down of Old Animosities in Florac (E) 

In the Valley of the Mimente 

When Religion Is the Poetry of Man’s Experience (E) 
Under the Stars (D) 

Stevenson’s Feeling toward Dogs (E) 

The Heart of the Country 
A Pleasing Silhouette (D) 

The Man Who Was Afraid of Sleeping under the Stars (D) 
On Top of the World (D) 


336 


TOPICS FOR THEME WRITING 


Dark Valleys Below (D) 

The Old Shepherd of the Hills (C. S.) 
Stevenson, Sentimental (E) 

The Last Day 
A Strange New Wine (E) 

The Last of Du Chayla (N) 

How Many Times a Pedlar (N) 

The Finished Romance of Castanet (N) 

Farewell, Modestine 
An Appropriate Epitaph on Modestine (E) 
Twelve Nights in the Cevennes (N) 


TOPICS FOR LONG THEMES 

The Weather on the Canals (D) 

River Joys (E) 

The River and Leaden Skies Above (D) 

The Oise Valley (D) 

Pleasing Traits of the French (E) 

Signs of the Scientist in the Voyageur (E) 

Innkeepers as a Class (D) 

Stevenson’s Opinion of Sports (E) 

French Dishes and French Wine (D) 

Strolling Players (D) 

Lessons in Description from Stevenson (E) 

Stevenson’s Taste in Reading (E) 

Stevenson as a Picturesque Figure (D) 

What Kind of a Painter Stevenson Would Have Made (E) 
The Use of Color in the Sketches (E) 

Hobbies of Stevenson’s (E) 

Stevenson’s Pet Aversions (E) 

Stevenson’s Philosophy of Life (E) 

What Stevenson Might Teach the Boy Scouts (E) 
Geographical Features of the Cevennes (E) 

What Stevenson Gained by Being Alone in the Cevennes (E) 


TOPICS FOR THEME WRITING 


337 


The Psychology of the Mountain Folk in the Cevennes (E) 

The Effects of Religious Wars (E) 

Life in the Monasteries (E) 

Signs of Stevenson’s Early Religious Training (E) 

An Historical Account of the Camisards (E) 

Stevenson’s Opinion of Women (E) 

Signs of Stevenson’s New Love in Travels with a Donkey (E) 
Typical Mountain Scenes (D) 

Overtones (E) 

Lingering Memories from the Two Essays (E) 

A Comparison of the Style of the Two Essays (E) 

(Indications of a more mature attitude toward life in the later 
essay) 

Stevenson’s Subtle Humor (E) 

A Comparison of the Attitude toward Nature of Stevenson with 
That of Wordsworth (E) 

The Charm of Stevenson’s Personality (E) 

A Comparison of Stevenson with Charles Lamb (E) 

A Comparison of Stevenson’s “ Walking Tours ” with Hazlitt’s 
“ On Going a Journey ” (E) 






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